About Ignatz Weil
“Ignatz Weil in the Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934”
Ignatz Weil’s journey to Bonner County, Idaho, began in Austria where he was born to Saul Weil and Jette Greenhood on February 27, 1853. Only 18-years-old, Weil immigrated to the United States alone on-board the Silesia, a German passenger ship that arrived in New York City on June 21, 1871, according to information accessed via Ancestry.com. It is not known if he spoke English, or if someone was waiting for him after he arrived.
After he was admitted to the U.S., according to William Hawley in his History of Idaho, Ignatz “took up his abode” in San Francisco. An item in a 1905 edition of the Northern Idaho News, an early Sandpoint newspaper, suggests that San Francisco was his destination because his mother may have already lived there. “Mrs. Weil, mother of Ignatz Weil,” the item reports, “has arrived in the city [Sandpoint] from San Francisco to make her home with her son.” (Hawley, History of Idaho: The Gem of the Mountains, p. 179; Northern Idaho News, August 4, 1905, p. 8)
In San Francisco, Weil engaged in “mercantile pursuits for a time” and became an American citizen on June 21, 1880, according to the “California, U.S., Voter Registers, 1866-1898” index in Ancestry.com. Ancestry.com also yielded San Francisco city directory records that document Weil’s residence in the city throughout the 1870s and up to 1882 when he moved to Helena, Montana. In the online article, “Ignatz Weil: from Vienna to Helena to Sandpoint,” the author, who is anonymous, writes that Weil moved to Helena to work for merchants Isaac Greenhood and Ferdinand Bohm. It could not have been a coincidence that Ignatz’s mother’s maiden name was also Greenhood. Employed as a traveling salesman, Weil traveled “all over Montana and northern Idaho, hauling trunks of samples and soliciting orders for the clothing, tobacco, and liquor that Greenhood and Bohm sold.” (Hawley, History of Idaho: The Gem of the Mountains, p. 179; “Ignatz Weil: from Vienna to Helena to Sandpoint,” The History Trail)
“A Montana Failure.”
Sometime in 1891, Ignatz and his wife Irene, whom he had married in 1886, left Helena and moved to Sandpoint. The exact reason he severed his association with Greenhood, Bohm & Co. is not known. Nelson Wayne Durham offers the reasonable explanation in his 1912 History of the City of Spokane and Spokane Country Washington that Ignatz had “accumulated sufficient capital” and experience “to embark in business for himself.” Yet, the more likely explanation is that the firm for which he worked, Greenhood, Bohm & Co., was going out of business. Citing “poor collections” as the cause of its failure, the company assigned its assets, valued at around $200,000, to a receiver on February 13, 1893. Liabilities were estimated at $250,000, according to an article in the February 14, 1893, edition of Boise’s Idaho Statesman. (Idaho Statesman, February 14, 1893, p. 1)
“SAND POINT MATTERS.”
By August of 1891, Weil had set up his own mercantile store in Sandpoint. The reason he chose Sandpoint is not known; perhaps the village had been one he routinely visited on his rounds for Greenhood and Bohm, and he liked what he saw. According to an article in the August 13, 1891, edition of the Spokane Review, Weil seeded his store with stock purchased from the area’s first mercantile business, E.L. Weeks & Co. The article adds that he was “erecting a large warehouse in addition to his store, and is receiving his goods in carload lots.” An article in the November 14, 1891, edition of the Kootenai Herald, published in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, reports that the “establishment of Ignatz Weil enjoys the distinction of having done more business this summer than any other store in the county,” which was then Kootenai. (Kootenai Herald, November 14, 1891, p. 4)
In 1892, Weil’s store and residence, located across Sand Creek on the east side of the Northern Pacific Railway line, were destroyed by a “disastrous fire.” According to an article in the June 7 edition of the Spokane Review, the fire spread from its origin in the kitchen of a nearby hotel “to the adjoining building, occupied by Ignatz Weil as a general store, with residence attached.” The blaze also destroyed Weil’s warehouse, which contained liquors in barrels, hardware and general merchandise.“ Weil had insured his business, according to an article in the April 1, 1893, edition of the Kootenai Herald, and “very nearly” all of his losses were covered. (Spokane Review, June 7, 1892, p. 7; Kootenai Herald, April 1, 1893, p. 6)
“THE PRIEST RIVER MINES”
As he rebuilt his mercantile business, Weil also pursued opportunities in mining and timber. According to an article in the April 1, 1893, edition of the Bonners Ferry Herald, “Mr. Weil has lately turned his attention to mining and has become interested in the Priest Lake country. He now owns a controlling interest in the famous Continental, or Smith mine, which is said by mining experts to be one of the greatest surface showings in the country.” In 1894, according to an article in the February 2, 1894, edition of the Tacoma [Washington] Daily Ledger, the Great Northern Railway awarded Weil a contract for “150,000 cedar railroad ties, 7x7 and 8 feet long.” (Bonners Ferry Herald, April 1, 1893, p. 6; Tacoma Daily Ledger, February 2, 1894, p. 4)
“SANDPOINT NOTES.”
By 1895, Ignatz seems to have delegated day-to-day management of his store, known as the Sandpoint Mercantile Company, to W.C. King, the company’s “genial and affable secretary.” Weil would, in fact, sever his connection with the company by the end of the year. Little is known about W.C. King, whose first name is believed to have been Warren. Helena directory information and accounts in area newspapers strongly suggest that Ignatz and W.C. knew each other in Montana, and the 1891 City of Helena directory documents that both men were then residents of the city. In 1898, Helena businessmen A.M. Holter and W.C. Cullen “purchased a three-fourths interest in the Sand Point Mercantile company, Richard Lockey and other stockholders in the company, except W.C. King, selling out to them.” (Independent-Record [Helena, Montana] November 17, 1898, p. 8)
King seems to have arrived in Sandpoint sometime before 1895. An article in the Bonners Ferry Herald puts him in “Sand Point” as early as January 1895 when he others formed the Sand Point Literary Society. Sometime in the spring, King, who had already established himself as secretary of Sandpoint Mercantile, visited Helena where he seems to have extended an invitation to his friends and associates to visit Sandpoint. During the summer, a steady stream of Montanans arrived to enjoy his company and the area’s many recreational amenities. (Bonners Ferry Herald, January 12, 1895, p. 5)
In July, King treated “I. Greenhood and daughter,” as well as Irene and Ignatz Weil, to a trip to Priest River and later hosted “W.E. Cox, register of the Helena land office.” In mid-August, King organized “one of the most delightful trips that was ever made on Lake Pend d’Oreille” for a large group of people that included Irene and Ignatz, “Mr. and Mrs. W.E. Cox and son Howard, Miss Dora Greenhood, and Mr. Jesse Stone of Helena.” (Bonners Ferry Herald, July 20, 1895, p.1; Silver Blade [Rathdrum, Idaho] July 27, 1895, p. 1; Silver Blade, August 17, 1895, p. 1)
Entrepreneur and Booster, 1900 to 1907
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