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Fred E. Yahr

History of Milwaukee, City and County, Volume 2, William George Bruce, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co, Chicago, 1922.

Fred E. Yahr is the president of the Yahr & Lange Drug Company a business that was established in the year in which Fred E. Yahr was born. His birth occurred at Princeton, Wisconsin, on the 4th of June, 1872, his parents being Ferdinand and Emilie Schaal Yahr. The paternal grandfather Ernst Yahr was a native of Germany who came with his family to Wisconsin and located on a farm in Dodge county. Ferdinand Theodore Yahr was born in Prussia on the 17th of December 1834 and received his education in the schools of his birthplace. In 1849 he determined to come to the United States and as a result located in Wisconsin residing in Watertown until 1853.

In that year he removed to Berlin where he resided until 1861 when he located in Princeton and engaged in business as a hardware merchant. He was likewise a banker of prominence and was chairman of the township and president of the village board. He was a member of the county board from 1878 to 1883 and was a presidential elector in 1892 to the democratic national convention. In 1890 he became a stockholder in the Charles Baumbach Company, dealers in wholesale drugs of Milwaukee and in 1893 was made president of the concern.

He was active in that association until 1898 when the name of the business was changed to the Yahr & Lange Company and he became chief executive. He was president of that concern at the time of his death on the 1st of May 1910.

Mr Yahr was a staunch supporter of the democratic party and was elected to the state senate in 1891 defeating James O. Raymond, republican, by a majority of fifteen hundred and ninety four votes. He became identified with the Masons in 1868 and crossed the sands of the desert to Tripoli Temple of the Mystic Shrine.

Mrs. Yahr was born in Mayville Dodge county and passed away on the 23d of April 1912. The Schaals were likewise of German descent.

Fred E. Yahr acquired his early education in the Princeton Lutheran school an institution for which his father had given the ground on which the school building stands. He also attended public school and later became a student in Northwestern University at Watertown where he remained for two and a half years.

When his textbooks were put aside he became associated with his father in a hardware business working for the first year at one dollar per week and two dollars per week for the second year while the third year his father sold him a third interest in the business which was conducted under the style of Yahr Brothers for a period of nine years at the end of which time. Fred E. Yahr sold his interest to W.R. Yahr his brother who continued to carry on the store to the time of his death . . .