Emil Lesser

Emil Lesser (born August 21, 1855 in Riga, Russian Empire; died November 2, 1915 in Los Angeles, California) was a newspaper publisher, restaurateur, hotelier and a developer of Powderly and Trevillick.

Lesser was the son of the Saxon consul in Riga, and was born there, in what is now the capital of Latvia. He attended Leipzig University before immigrating to the United States. He lived in Cullman before moving to Birmingham in 1883 as a reporter and agent for the German language weekly Anzeiger des Südens. He opened a restaurant on 2nd Avenue North at 20th Street soon later.

In the late 1880s, through his association with the Knights of Labor, Lesser became involved in real estate development in the Powderly area. He was a founding partner of the Mutual Land & Improvement Company which subdivided Powderly, and of the Beneficial Land and Improvement Company which developed nearby Trevillick. Emil Lesser & Associates constructed the Birmingham, Powderly & Bessemer Railroad streetcar line, with plans to sell it to Ladenburg Thalmann & Company of New York. The failure of London's Baring Brothers bank affected the financing for the deal and it was eventually sold out of receivership to the Birmingham Railway & Electric Company.

In 1892 Lesser purchased the Metropolitan Hotel adjoining the Union Station, which he operated until at least 1904. Lesser was publisher of the Birmingham Courier, also in German, when he was elected president of the Birmingham Press Club.

Lesser served on the Birmingham Police Commission from 1897 to 1899. Lesser was also one of the founders of "Turn Verein", a social club made up mainly immigrants who had come to the United States from the German Federation during the Revolutions of 1848. As a leader of that group he was heavily involved in the city's short-lived Carnival celebrations.

Lesser wrote travelogues of his experiences in Europe. He was a member of the Association of German Writers in America, the German National Association, and the North American Singing Federation.

Lesser disappeared while swimming at Venice Beach in Los Angeles, California. His clothes were found in a bath-house on the beach, and he was presumed to have drowned, though his body was never recovered. A headstone was placed in his memory at Cemetery Emanu-El.

References

• Spengler, Otto (1913) Das deutsche Element der Stadt New York: Biographisches Jahrbuch der Deutsch-Amerikaner New Yorks und Umgebung.
• "Emil Lesser drowned" (November 11, 1915) The Cullman Democrat
• Cruikshank, George H. (1920) History of Birmingham and Its Environs: A Narrative Account of Their Historical Progress, Their People, and Their Principal Interests 2 volumes. Chicago, Illinois: Lewis Publishing Company. - via Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections
• Elovitz, Mark H. (1974) A Century of Jewish Life in Dixie: The Birmingham Experience. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press ISBN 0817369015
• McKiven, Henry M. (1995) Iron and Steel: Class, Race, and Community in Birmingham, Alabama, 1875-1920. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press ISBN 0807845248