A pioneer and industrialist family from Indiana

Gustav Jacob Huthsteiner

Gustave Jacob Huthsteiner  born in Siegen, Prussia, was one of the earliest settler in Tell city, Indiana.

Gustave Huthsteiner was trusted, well liked, and active in the community. A native of Prussia, he had been raised in Cincinnati by parents who had fled Germany in 1848. He left his hometown in 1864 to take a job as a teacher in Tell City. He gained a good reputation and was elected twice to the post of Perry county treasurer in the early 1870s, became a state representative in 1878, sat on the school board in the late 1880s, and became mayor of Tell City in 1891. Because of his accounting skills, the Tell City National Bank hired him as its cashier in 1874, a position he held until his rise to president of the financial institution. He was also the manager of a chair factory and Tell city brewing company and somehow found the time to run the insurance business.

Walter Fuerst Huthsteiner

His son Walther Fuerst Huthsteiner attended  for one year West Point Military Academy and then entered the Rose Polytechnic Institute at Terre Haute. Here he completed his work in civil engineering in 1901. During his years in the Rose Polytechnic, while he stood only a little more than average in his academic work, being on the honour roll once, he was especially active in extracurricular movement. He was captain of the football team, captain of the track team, president of the Athletic Association, president of the Indiana Intercollegiate Athletic Association, which included all the larger schools in the state, and president of his class and of the Student Council.

On leaving college Mr. Huthsteiner became an employee of the Tell City National Bank, as assistant cashier, with which he has been identified for thirty years. He was made cashier upon the death of his father, and became president, an office he still holds, in January, 1919. In 1906 he became identified with the Tell City Furniture Company as president, and in 1924, upon the death of his brother, Eugene Huthsteiner, became active manager as well as president of the company, positions he still retains. In addition to the above he is president of the Tell City Creamery Company, president of the Knott Manufacturing Company, secretary and manager of the Tell City Canning Company and a member of the board of directors of the Citizens National Bank of Evansville. On January 1, 1931, he was elected a director of the Louisville branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis. He is also treasurer of the Tell City Hotel Company, operating one of the most popular hotels in Southern Indiana.

A friend of the public schools, he has done much to raise educational standards at Tell City as president of the local board of education. He served one term in the City Council, although he has never sought public office. Politically he is a Democrat. Fraternally Mr. Huthsteiner is a York Rite Mason, is a member of Hadi Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Evansville and also belongs to the Knights of Pythias. His religious connection is with the Episcopal Church.

During the World war he served as chairman of the Liberty Loan organization of the county. Much of the population of the county was strongly pro-German in character. There was only a weekly paper for publicity, with poor roads to facilitate meetings in the county, and under these circumstances it is highly creditable to the energy and understanding of the committee that each quota assigned was over subscribed, so that an indispensable service was rendered to the nation at that time. The record of the committee still remains unrecognized by any of the usual patriotic memorials given to those who served their country in time of need.

Mr. Huthsteiner also served as a director of the Tell City Chamber of Commerce for twenty years, and for two years was its president.

Eduard (Edward) Gustav Huthsteiner

Edward Gustave Huthsteiner came into this troubled world on Jan. 31, 1867, which indicates that he is a young man till. His father was a banker and the young man’s first business experience was in the Tell City National Bank, in which his father was cashier.

When he was fourteen he began working in the bank during summer vacations, He continued at this sort of work until he was seventeen, when his father, who was one of those old fashioned men, who believed that every boy needed the discipline of a useful trade, got him a job in a woodworking plant, where he could learn the woodturner’s art. Young Huthsteiner remained at the woodturner’s lathe until he was about 20 when he quit this engrossing business to go clerking on a steamboat running the sluggish Ohio river between Louisville, Ky., and Evansville, Ind. He kept at this until he became head clerk or purser. By 1892 Mr. Huthsteiner had tired of cussing nigger roustabouts and seeing the world from the mud deck of a river steamer and went back to Tell City to resume the dignities of bank clerk. For the next five years he was a banker and forgot the picturesque language of the riverman. Then he quit to go into the general insurance business.

It was not until 1907, that, by buying a little stock in the Tell City Furniture Company, he became interested in the furniture business. His active interest in the furniture business did not, however, begin until March, 1912, when he was offered the job of manager of the Tell City Furniture Company and at the insistence of the directors of the company, accepted it. Since that time Mr. Huthsteiner’s biography has been involved in the growth and increasing prosperity of the Tell City Furniture Company, of which he is still manager and treasurer. Since he took hold of the plant its production capacity has been more than quadrupled. The plant has been improved to a state of high mechanical efficiency and the company placed in a strong financial condition, which permits the regular payment to the stockholders of satisfactory dividends. When Mr. Huthsteiner took hold the factory was producing a very ordinary line of bedroom furniture, but it is now turning out a high class line that will stand comparison with any in the country. The highest manufacturing standards are maintained at the plant and some of the finest veneers and hardwood lumber obtainable are used in the furniture produced.
During his career as a furniture manufacturer Mr. Huthsteiner has found the time and energy not only to improve his own organization, but to take part in the progressive co-operative movements of the industry. He has been an active member of the National Alliance of Case Goods Manufacturers and a member of its executive committee since its organization. He is also a member of the National Council of Furniture Associations, being a delegate to that body from the National Alliance of Case Goods Manufacturers. He was a member of the school board of Tell City for eight or nine years and president of the Tell City Chamber of Commerce a number of years.

Robert Edward Huthsteiner

Robert Edward Huthsteiner Entered the Institute from Tell City, Ind., in 1889, at the age of 17, and graduated in the Electrical Engineering Course in 1893.  In 1894 he was Private Assistant to Professor Gray at the Rose Polytechnic Institute. From 1895 to 1897 Engineer in the
Ice Factory. Tell City, Ind. From 1898 Erecting Engineer
Frick Company, Waynesboro, Pa. From 1898 to 1903 with the General Electric Company in the Switchboard Department,
Schenectady, N. Y. In 1903 Assistant Manager Switchboard Department General Electric Company. From 1908 to date Manager of the El Paso Ice and Refrigerator Company, El Paso, Tex. Is a member of the A. I. E. E. and Society of Engineers of Eastern New York. Was married September 19, 1894.

 
Alfred Jacob Huthsteiner

Alfred Jacob Huthsteiner was born on 31 January 1874, in Ferdinand, Dubois, Indiana, He married Dora K. Ahlf in 1905, in Tell City, Perry. They were the parents of at least 2 daughters. He immigrated to New York City in 1928 and lived in Massachusetts in 1946 and Tell in 1946. He died on 17 January 1946, in Tell City, Perry, Indiana,  at the age of 71, and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Tell City, Perry, Indiana.

 
Hans Huthsteiner

Hans Huthsteiner was born in Tell City and he lived 65 years in Schenectady. For 37 years he was associated with General Electric as research engineer in the Research laboratory. He retired in 1948. He was a member of the Union Presbyterian Church and the Charles Mead lodge NO. 863 F. and A.M.

 
Louis Huthsteiner

Louis Huthsteiner: Louis’ family resided on a mountain called ‘The Eagles Nest’ in the Catskill mountains, near Hurley, NY. In his mid life, Louis lost interest as a lawyer and dedicated his life to Christianity and Evangelism. He wrote an unpublished autobiography which included details of his grand father’s migration from Prussia to the US. He also wrote of his childhood years, college years, army years, his conversion to a devoted to Christian and later experiences. Hope Stanton Lee and her husband Harold met Louis in his later years and became very dear friends and fellow Christians. Hope was inspired to write a photo illustrated biography of ‘Brother Louis’ detailing his later years when she knew him and his ventures as an evangelist. Her book was called ‘Up the Mountain Road’. Her husband had a few bound copies published. Unfortunately the book was not archived with a major publishing company, so it is  not possible to have more of them published.

 
George Edward Huthsteiner

George Edward Huthsteiner (February 17, 1891 – June 29, 1967) was a U.S. military diplomat, U.S. Assistant Military Attorney in Tallinn, and eventually Military Ombudsman of the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki, who succeeded in obtaining accurate military information from Maximilia von Hellens about He succeeded Major Frank B. Hayne, who was the first US military ombudsman stationed in Finland. [1] Hayne came to Moscow from Moscow due to the Winter War in November 1939. After Huthsteiner became military ombudsman, Hayne continued to do so as deputy military ombudsman in February 1940. Huthsteiner returned to his original position in Riga on May 31, 1940.

Tell City National Bank built 1880

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