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Charles Ferdinand
Penzel emigrated from Austria to Little Rock in 1857 and after the Civil War became
a leading merchant, pioneering banker, and prolific investor who rose to the
first rank of capitalists in the city. Beyond his widespread business ventures,
he was active, often as an officer, in numerous city economic development,
religious, civic, and charitable organizations. At the time of his death on
February 16, 1906, the Arkansas Democrat
observed that he was, perhaps, the richest German-American in Arkansas.
Born on October 8,
1840, Penzel was one of twenty-eight emigrants from Asch, a Bohemian city of
about 9,000 and a district of about 20,000 people, who settled in Pulaski
County between 1848 and 1857. When he arrived in Pulaski County, his parents and
older sister Anna Katharina were living on farms near Granite Mountain. His
sister had emigrated seven years earlier, in 1850, with her soon-to-be husband
Christopher Reichardt, who also was from Asch.
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| Portraits of Rosa and Charles Penzel from a story in the Arkansas Gazette, January 24, 1937 |
Before the Civil
War, Penzel lived with the large family of Henry and Catherine Fisher, both of
whom had emigrated from Germany in the 1830s, and he worked for Fisher as a
carpenter. When the war began, he joined the confederate army, volunteering for
Company A, Sixth Arkansas Infantry Regiment, the city’s former “Capitol Guard.” Wounded slightly at Shiloh in April 1862, he nearly
lost his life on September 20, 1863 at the battle of Chickamauga when he was
shot through the mouth. Captured, he was sent first to a hospital then to a prisoner-of-war
camp in Rock Island, Illinois
In May 1865, the
war over, Penzel returned to Little Rock and worked as a bookkeeper for the Kramer
and Miller Family Grocery Store and Bakery. The store owners, Frederick Kramer
and Charles Miller, were German immigrants and brothers-in-law: Kramer was
married to Adelina Reichardt and Miller to Fredericka Reichardt. These women, from
Asch, were the sisters of Christopher Reichardt, the husband of Penzel’s
sister.
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| Advertisement from Daily Arkansas Gazette, Aug. 11, 1865 |
The grocery store
had opened in November 1863 after union troop occupied Little Rock, and it
flourished. In early 1868, it moved from Main Street to a newly constructed three-story
building at the corner of Markham and Commerce Streets, near the city’s ferry
landing. As the move took place, Penzel became
a partner in the firm.
Kramer
sold his share of the grocery store in 1872, and its name was changed to Miller
and Penzel. On August 28, 1875, Miller
died suddenly. Penzel continued to operate the store, but in December 1876 – before
Miller’s estate was settled -- the building and most of the store’s merchandise
were destroyed in a fire. Penzel quickly resumed selling groceries in a nearby
temporary location. In August, 1877, he reopened the store in a new building at
the old location, and a few months later he bought Miller’s share from his
estate and changed its name to Charles F. Penzel & Co.
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| Advertisement in the Arkansas Gazette (Feb. 27, 1877) announcing the reopening of Miller and Penzel at a temporary location after its store building was destroyed in December 1876 |
After Miller’s
death, Penzel had hired George Reichardt, also an emigrant from Asch and the brother
of Fredericka Miller and Adelina Kramer, to help manage the store, appointing
him in 1882 the store’s secretary and treasurer. Reichardt remained an officer
of the firm during most of the years that followed and was its president after
Penzel’s death. In 1886, Penzel changed the firm’s name to Charles F. Penzel
Co. Grocers and later incorporated it. That name remained until 1922, when the store
was sold to the American Wholesale Grocery Co.
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| Arkansas Gazette advertisement (June 12, 1878) |
In addition to the
wholesale grocery business, Penzel developed a multitude of other business
interests. In 1870, he invested in the city’s first building and loan association,
and for the rest of his life invested in, and served as a director of, such
financial associations. In 1875, he helped create the German Savings Bank, only
the second incorporated bank in the city, and served as the bank’s first
president, holding that office until 1883.
Under his leadership, the bank became one of the city’s most trusted and
successful financial institutions.
Penzel was
appointed president of Exchange National Bank in 1885, a position he held until
February 1888. The next year, he became president of Guaranty Trust Company, a small
savings bank making real estate loans. In 1893, he again became president of Exchange
National Bank, a position he held until 1903. A year later, he was elected
president of the Arkansas Bankers Association.
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| Arkansas Gazette April 13, 1875 |
Beginning in the
last half of the 1870s, Penzel expanded his business interests. He started a manufacturing
company that milled flour, another that made soap, and still another that built
barrels. He co-founded the Little Rock Street Railway Company to operate a
streetcar line. He was a director, and often an officer, of companies engaged
in diverse businesses, including insurance, railroads, street cars, utilities (gas,
gas lights, electricity, and electric lights), and river shipping. Also, he dealt
in cotton and lumber (he was president of the Arkansas Lumbermen’s Association
in the 1880s) and invested in mines, bridges, rural land, and Little Rock real
estate (he was co-owner of a large subdivision that opened in 1889).
From the start of
his career, Penzel promoted local businesses. He joined the city chamber of commerce
at its creation in the late 1860s and in 1880 led an effort to revitalize it. In
the 1890s and early 1900s, he was a local Board of Trade officer. Also, he was among
the businessmen who created a Cotton Exchange and undertook other initiatives to
improve Little Rock’s cotton trade. Further, Penzel spoke out for merchants,
pressing the city government to operate more efficiently, demanding that federal
regulators enact fairer tariffs and railroad shipping rates, and weighing in on
other important public policy issues. In addition, Penzel supported, and often
led, efforts to create tax districts to upgrade local streets, drainage, and
bridges and to build new water and sewer systems.
Outside of the business
world, Penzel played a leading role in Little Rock’s German Lutheran Church and
its construction of a grand house of worship. In 1868, soon after the church came
into existence, he was elected its first secretary. Later, when the Lutherans
constructed a new church building, opened in 1888, he was cited as one of a half
dozen people who had contributed the most to its completion. Although he was a
member of the church until his death, in his later years he attended the
Presbyterian Church.
Among Penzel’s
many charitable activities, he and his wife led efforts to acquire and operate a
home for Little Rock’s orphans. He was on the board of directors of many organizations
assisting the poor, such as the Relief Association, the Children’s Aid Society,
and the Old Ladies Home. Also, Penzel helped found the city’s humane society and
was for several years its president. In addition, he was an officer of state
and local confederate veterans groups. Despite his outsized role in Little
Rock’s civic life, Penzel joined no secret societies, such as the Masons, that
were then popular with businessmen.
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| Penzel Home, Arkansas Gazette, Aug. 14, 1887 |
Penzel had an
interest in local politics, but rarely engaged in party affairs. He became a
United States citizen on August 3, 1866 and registered to vote in 1867. The democratic party nominated him seven times
to serve as a Justice of Peace on the Pulaski County Court, and he was elected
each time.
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| Penzel Mausoleum at Mount Holly Cemetery |
Penzel married Rosa
A. Eisenmayer (1850 – 1938) of Illinois, the daughter of German immigrants, on
January 1, 1873. They had three daughters:
Hedwig Penzel [Forsyth] (1873 – 1939), Hildegard Penzel [Wright] (1875 –
1953), and Marcella Penzel (1883 – 1976). The family often entertained Little
Rock’s social elite at lavish parties held in its home. In his private life,
Penzel was a cultured, disciplined, and sober man who enjoy writing poetry and
traveling. A colleague noted that although he was “decidedly forceful in all
business,” he was “a quiet, modest man." Following his death on February 16,
1906, Penzel was buried at Mt. Holly Cemetery in a large marble mausoleum,
designed by architects George R. Mann and Aloysius Downey. Among his descendants
is great-grandson Charles Penzel Wright Jr. who in 1998 won the Pulitzer Prize
for poetry and was the United States’ poet laureate in 2014-2015.
Sources
“Charles
F. Penzel Died Suddenly.” Arkansas
Gazette, Feb. 17, 1906, p. 1.
“Death of Charles F. Penzel.” Arkansas Democrat, February 16, 1906,
p. 4.
Necrological. Arkansas Democrat, Feb. 18, 1906, p. 2.
J.D. McClatchy (interviewer). “Charles Wright. The Art of Poetry
No. 41.” The Paris Review, issue
113, Winter, 1989 (accessed
on-line).
Penzel, Charles F. papers, Arkansas State Archives, Little Rock,
Arkansas.
Penzel family collection, BC.MSS.11.01, Butler Center for Arkansas
Studies, Arkansas Studies Institute.
https://cdm15728.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/findingaids/id/4764
A
poem entitled “Arkansas Traveler” written by Charles Penzel Wright about his
great-grandfather can be found at this link:
https://voca.arizona.edu/readings-list/45/52
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