1921 Duluth & St Louis County MN, Van Brunt.pdf - Garon.us

760 DULUTH AND ST. LOUIS COUNTY
at 25 East First street. Eventually he built up a large retail business
and gradually transformed his enterprise into wholesale and jobbing,
and the annual volume of his sales now aggregate half a million
dollars. Mr. Sher has long made it a rule and practice to invest his
surplus proceeds from business in Duluth real estate, and is the owner
of a number of residences and business blocks which constitute a
substantial form of real wealth.
He is the father of four sons and two daughters, all living, and
the sons are actively associated with him in the wholesale meat and
livestock business. Mr. Sher was married in Russia forty-two years
ago and after coming to this country and getting established sent for
his wife and family, who joined him. Mr. Sher is an Orthodox in
religious belief and is a Republican in politics.
J. E. Davis, a resident of Duluth for the past fourteen years, has
built up and is i)roprietor of a large and prosperous business known
as the West End Scrap Iron and ^letal Company, which buys and
sells material over a district including most of the Northwestern States
and Canada.
Mr. Davis was born in Russia, June 2, 1886. and was twenty years
of age when he came to this country in 1906. He had a fair education,
and on coming to Duluth found work as a laborer in a scrap iron yard.
At the end of a year and a half he had made considerable progress
in the acquisition of the American language and customs, and then
engaged in business for himself under the name of the West End
Scrap Iron and ]\Ietal Company. From 1908 to 1918 his associate
in this business was W. Ginsberg, and since then he has been the
individual proprietor. His first location was at Twenty-first avenue.
West, and ^Michigan street; a year and a half later he removed to
1910-1912 West Michigan street, and the office and yard of the plant
have been in that locality ever since. The West End Scrap Iron
and Metal Company are wholesale dealers in scrap iron and metal,
rags and woolens, second-hand machinery, and 60 per cent of the
business is jobbing. The business connections extend over eight or
ten states and Canada. Mr. Davis has also been in the hide and
fur business in Duluth, and was interested in the Marine Iron & Shipbuilding
Company.
He is a member of the Masonic Order, the Duluth Commercial
Club, and Covenant Lodge No. 569. I. O. B. B. His church connections
are with Kofereth of Israel Temple of Immanuel. jNIr. Davis
was married in Duluth in 1914 to ]\Iiss Florence Levin.
Peter L. Morterud. The senior partner of the Morterud-Koneczny
Company, one of the large and prosperous retail stores on West Superior
street, began his career with onh- a common school education
and with the incentive sui)plied b}' himself in the way of earnestness,
ambition and perseverance, ruid has found his way over obstacles to
independent and influential position in his home city.
Mr. Morterud was born in Norway, September 11. 1866. His
father. Peter Morterud, brought the famih' to America in 1873 and
for the first two years lived in Dane county, Wisconsin, then two
years in Trempealeau county and fifteen years in Jackson county in
the same state. He was a blacksmith by trade. On coming to Duluth
he located in what is now known as the West End. where he lived
retired until his death in 1901. Of his seven children, five are still
living.