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Biography For Ben Alexander

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Author:
Bill Hart

Background:

Ben Alexander was born in Wausau on October 6, 1894. He was the son of Mr. & Ms. Walter Alexander, one of the most important men in the early history of Wausau. After his graduation from the Wausau High School, he attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the University of California and was graduated in 1914 from the Biltmore School at Biltmore, NC, with the degree of bachelor of forestry. With other students, he studied forestry in the Rhineland, Germany.

Accomplishments:

While Mr. Alexander was completing his studies at the University of California, he joined the army during the first World War. He was stationed at American Lake, Washington, where he advanced to the rank of captain.  After the war, he and another officer were sent to France by the City of Wausau to purchase various war trophies which were brought here for exhibition at the city hall and library.

He entered the lumber industry as superintendent of the Wausau Paper Mills Company’s logging operations in Lincoln County, where he purchased logs from farmers and directed log drives on the local rivers.  He later engaged in timber cruises on the west coast for his father.  He played an important role in the formation of the Masonite Corporation with the late William Mason, inventor of the Masonite process. 

As president of the Masonite Corporation his official duties took him to Chicago, and he left Wausau in 1938 to make his home at Lake Forest, Illinois.  Then, he moved to a ranch in Kirkland, Arizona where he raised Hereford cattle and also cattle ponies known by the breed name of “quarter horse."  He was president and director of the Diamond-2 Ranch Company of Kirkland.  He was president and director of the Lake Superior Lumber Corporation of Ontonagon, MI; vice president and director of the Montana-Dakota Utilities Company; the Nehalem Investment Company; the Silver Falls Timber Company; and a director of the Walter Alexander Company.  Mr. Alexander, along with his brother Judd, helped establish the Alexander Airport, contributing much of the land for the project, which later became the Alexander Municipal Airport when it was given to the city of Wausau. 

 

Mr. Alexander was married in Wausau on October 9, 1926 to Miss Josephine Foster, daughter of the late Mr. & Ms. George E. Foster, another of the prominent Wausau lumbermen.  Mr. Alexander was a member of the Wausau Elks lodge, Forest Lodge #130 F&AM, and a member of the Zeta Psi college fraternity. 

 

At age 49, Ben Alexander died unexpectedly on July 6, 1944 at Colonial Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, from complications from an operation.  He is buried in Pine Grove Cemetery in Wausau, WI.

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Other Information

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Date of Birth: 10/6/1894

Place of Birth: Wis

Date of Death: 7/6/1944

Place of Death: Minnesota

Place of Burial: Pine Grove Cemetery Wausau, WI

Race: W

Father's Birthplace: Scotland

Mother's Birthplace: Pennsylvania

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