WELP, JOSEPH H.

WELP, KOBBE, GULDE

Posted By: Jean Kramer (email)
Date: 7/6/2003 at 15:42:39

Biography reproduced from page 91 of Volume II of the History of Kossuth County written by Benjamin F. Reed and published in 1913:

One of the prominent business men of Kossuth county is Joseph H. Welp, of Bancroft, a tile and cement manufacturer. He was born in Jo Daviess county, Illinois, August 14, 1869, a son of B. H. and Teresa (Kobbe) Welp, both of whom were born in Germany but were married in Galena, Illinois. The father, who was a pioneer in Iowa, at the time of his death in his eighty-fourth year, was living on the old homestead of two hundred and forty acres in Marshall county. The mother passed away at the age of sixty-five and both are buried in Marshall county. They were the parents of nine children, four of whom are living.

Joseph H. Welp received his education in the public schools of Illinois and in Marshall county, Iowa. In 1893 Mr. Welp settled in Kossuth county, where he engaged in farming and cattle feeding on a farm of five hundred and sixty acres in Greenwood township, a mile west of Bancroft, where he remained nine years. He then left the farm and removed to Bancroft, where he bought an interest in the hardware business of Mayer & Gulde, the firm name being changed after he entered the business to that of Mayer, Gulde & Welp. He continued a member of this concern for three years and then sold his interest to his partners. For a year he gave his entire attention to looking after his land, which is divided into three separate farms of two hundred and forty acres. At the end of this period he engaged in manufacturing, associating himself with the Northwestern Drainage & Construction Company of Bancroft. In 1911 he purchased the entire plant and it is now conducted as the Welp Cement Products Company of Bancroft. The works occupy a frontage of seven hundred and fifty feet being one hundred and sixty-five feet in depth. The factory turns out cement tiling in all sizes up to thirty-six inches in diameter and the output in 1911 was valued at sixty thousand dollars, being eighty carloads of cement. Mr. Welp employs twenty men in the factory and his annual pay roll amounts to about fifteen thousand dollars. In addition to his large manufacturing business he owns a farm of two hundred and forty acres in Marshall county, Iowa, which he purchased from his father’s estate, and he is also owner of four hundred and eighty acres of improved land in Minnesota, on which he raises Shorthorn cattle, sheep and hogs. Mr. Welp is the organizer of Routes 2 and 3 Telephone Company in Greenwood and Ramsey townships.

Mr. Welp married Miss Emma C. Gulde, a native of Marshall county, and to this union ten children were born, Walter J., F. J., L. W., Dorothy M., Bertie C., Floretta S., J. H., Jr., Priscilla E., Collette K. and Arthur Charles. Politically Mr. Welp is a democrat. He has been president of the city school board for fifteen years and also a member of the city council. He is a member of the Catholic church, and fraternally is affiliated with the Knights of Columbus. He is one of the best known business men in Kossuth county. The possessor of large landed interests, extensively engaged in farming and stock-raising, operating a large cement and tile factory giving employment to twenty men, a member of the city council of Bancroft and for fifteen years a member of its school board, he stands easily in the front rank of business men in the county. Few men in northern Iowa have greater business ability than Mr. Welp. Handling his various interests in a masterful way, he has continued to add not only to his own assets but to the wealth of the city and county of which he is a resident.