Empkie, L. C.

EMPKIE

Posted By: Joyce Hickman (email)
Date: 12/16/2008 at 13:58:29

L. C. Empkie

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p.20, Council Bluffs)
L. C. Empkie, hardware, Council Bluffs, came to Council Bluffs in the spring of 1867, and engaged as book-keeper for T. J. Harford & Bro., with whom he remained till 1871, when he started in the hardware business for himself, and shortly afterward the firm of L. C. Empkie & Co., under which name he carried on business until 1874, when W. H. McDoel was admitted as a partner, and under the firm name of Empkie & McDoel, the business was continued until January 1882. At that time, a company was formed, called the Empkie Hardware Company, of which Mr. Empkie was the head, his associates in the business being George F. Wright and J. T. Hart. Since 1872, he has been doing both retail and wholesale business, having on the road three traveling men, and seven men besides himself in the house. When he began business in 1872, he had a stock of $16,000, his annual sales being then about $50,000. The business has steadily increased, until now they have about $100,000 stock, and their annual sales amount to about $375,000. Mr. Empkie was born near Berlin, Prussia, in 1845; was educated in the public schools there, and, in 1856, came to America with his parents, locating in Huron County, Mich. He engaged as salesman in a general store for a lumber company, having charge also of the shipping for the company for two or three years. He served during the year 1864 in the Twenty-ninth Michigan Volunteer Infantry, and, on leaving the army, again engaged with his former employers - the lumber firm of Ayres, Leonard & Wiswall - and continued with that firm until 1866. During the last two years he was with that firm he had charge of all shipping for the company. In 1866, he went to the Poughkeepsie (N. Y.) Commercial College, from which he graduated in the spring of 1867, then came directly to Council Bluffs, where he has remained ever since. He was married, in 1870, to Miss Van Pelt, of Council Bluffs. During the summer of 1882, the Empkie Hardware Company erected the first four-story business house built in Council Bluffs, the building which 100 feet deep by 50 feet in width, cost about $25,000.