B. F. Lesher
One of those who has been actively connected with the commercial development of Denison for a period of more than thirty years is B. F. Lesher, who is now engaged in the ice business.
A native of Pennsylvania, he was born in Cumberland county on the 3d of August, 1854, his parents being David and Eliza (Strickler) Lesher, also natives of the Keystone state but of Dutch extraction. Seven children were born unto them, as follows: Jeremiah, of Odebolt, Iowa; B. F., our subject; Christian, who passed away in Pennsylvania at the age of eleven years; Alice, the wife of David Cramer, of Ohio; Ida, who married Elsworth Lesher, of Kansas; Mary, who became the wife of James Lebel, of Odebolt; and Naomi, the wife of Charles Starr, of Canada. The father passed away in 1889, at the age of seventy-two years, but the mother still survives, although she has passed the eighty-fourth anniversary of her birth and makes her home in Odebolt.
The boyhood and youth of B. F. Lesher were spent in his native land, in the public schools of which he acquired his education. At the age of twenty years he started westward, locating in Crawford county, Iowa, on the 3d of May, 1874, where he worked at the carpenter's trade. He continued to be identified with that occupation until the first of the following January, at which time he opened a grocery and confectionery store in Denison. He successfully conducted this for eight years, at the end of which period he disposed of his interests and went into the ice business, in which he continues to be engaged, his being the only natural ice company in the town. Mr. Lesher, being an enterprising and progressive business man, has met with more than average success in his ventures and as a result owns several residence lots in Denison and a section of land in North Dakota.
His religious affiliation is with the Baptist church, while his political support is given the candidates of the republican party. Never having aspired to public honors, however, he takes little more than a passing interest in civic affairs, but always fulfills the requirements of good citizenship by casting a ballot on election day.
Source: History of Crawford County, Iowa. Vol. II. Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1911.