Читать книгу Memoirs of Milwaukee County, Volume 3 - Josiah Seymour Currey - Страница 37

Numbered among the capable and energetic business men of South Milwaukee is George F. Breitbach, an automobile dealer who has built up an extensive trade, his methods at all times in keeping with the progressiveness that is the dominating factor in business life today. He was born in South Dakota, July 4, 1884, and is a son of George and Elizabeth (Willman) Breitbach. The father, a native of Germany, came to the United States with his parents about 1879 and settled in South Dakota, where the family took up a claim. In this country he married Elizabeth Willman, a native of New York. In 1890 they removed to Milwaukee and in 1892 became residents of South Milwaukee, where Mr. Breitbach conducted business as a carpenter and contractor. He died in the year 1913. The mother is still living in South Milwaukee.

George F. Breitbach pursued his education in the public schools of Milwaukee and of South Milwaukee and also attended the McDonald Business College for a year. He has enjoyed varied experience in life and in that school has learned many valuable lessons. In early days he carried newspapers in South Milwaukee while still a schoolboy and he afterward worked for W. W. Wallis in a pawnbroker's shop in Milwaukee. There he obtained a valuable experience in the study of human nature and learned to Judge readily the character of the individual with whom he came into contact. He continued in that position for eighteen months and then became associated with E. C. Reed in a meat market in South Milwaukee. Later he took a trip through the west and upon his return entered the employ of the United States Glue Company at Carrollville. Wisconsin, while afterward he became an employee of the T. M. & E. Railway & Light Company in the power house, where he continued for three years. On the expiration of that period he removed to Stevens Point, Wisconsin, as engineer of the State Normal School but after some time returned to South Milwaukee and began working in the machine shop of the Bucyrus Company. While thus employed he took up insurance as a side line and on the 15th of October, 1915, he signed a contract with the Buick Automobile Company and has since represented this car in the sales line. He started with a three-car contract for one year and in 1921 contracted for one hundred and twenty-five cars, his sales covering a large territory, taking in all of the small towns around Milwaukee. On the 1st of March, 1919, he secured a Chevrolet contract and from that date to August 1, 1919, delivered one hundred and eight cars and canceled sixty contracts, due to the Buick making an exclusive contract for the handling of their cars. During 1919 Mr. Breitbach sold over three hundred Buick and Chevrolet cars. He has two salesmen employed all of the time and is rapidly building up his business. In 1916 he erected a modern building and in 1917 built an addition thereto. On the 11th of December, 1917, however, this building and its contents were destroyed by fire, burning to the ground, amounting to a big loss for Mr. Breitbach. In the spring of 1918 he erected another building, sixty by ninety feet, a brick structure which is equipped with all modern conveniences for the conduct of a business of this character. He also has a storehouse on Tenth avenue and another building in Wauwatosa.

On the 6th of February, 1915, Mr. Breitbach was married to Miss Margaret Haley of South Milwaukee, and they have a family of seven children: Margaret, Raymond, Eleanor, Francis, Catharine, Dorothy and George. The family residence is at 1218 Michigan avenue in South Milwaukee. Mr. Breitbach takes no interest in politics or in social life in the usually accepted sense of the term. His whole interest centers in his business and he is truly a self-made man in the best sense of that term. Concentration, close application and determination have been the definite and salient factors in his life work and have bought him a substantial measure of prosperity.