Bechtel, Peter

BECHTEL

Posted By: Volunteer (email)
Date: 10/10/2006 at 14:04:17

Peter Bechtel

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p.6, Council Bluffs)
Peter Bechtel, proprietor of Bechtel's Hotel, Council Bluffs, is a native of Bavaria, Germany, born in 1827, and came to America in 1854. After traveling for a short time, he located in Chicago, where he remained one year, after which he went to Lake Superior. After remaining there a few months, he went, in 1856, to La Crosse, where he remained till 1859, when he removed to St. Joseph, Mo.; he remained in St. Joseph for two years, and carried on the restaurant business there, and, in 1861, came to Council Bluffs; here he opened a hotel, and in 1864, bought his present stand, which he refitted and improved in 1867; he does a good business, having from fifty to sixty boarders, and being also well patronized by transient guests. In Havre de Grace, in 1854, he married Miss Anna Wentzel, of the Tyrol, Germany, and by this union they have been blessed with two children - Louis, twenty-six, and Anna, twenty-four years of age.