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Biography For Walter Alexander

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Author:
Bill Hart

Background:

the son of John and Jane (McIndoe) Alexander, Walter Alexander was born in Glasgow, Scotland on June 14, 1849.  The family emigrated to the U.S. when Walter was just nine years old.  They settled in Buena Vista in Portage County where John was a farmer.  Walter’s uncle Walter McIndoe, Wausau’s first and most prominent lumberman, had purchased the old “muley” sawmill at Big Bull Falls from George Stevens.  At age 13, Walter moved in with his uncle and attended the public schools in Wausau.  He then attended college at Ripon, the birthplace of the Republican Party, the organization with which Mr. Alexander would later become prominently identified.

Accomplishments:

In Mr. Alexander’s second year of college, Mr. McIndoe’s plant superintendent was called to Washington as an Indian interpreter, and while with the Indians, some Indians became ill and he was quarantined.  Mr. McIndoe, in need of a replacement, summoned Walter and placed him in charge of the entire operation.  Mr. Rousseau, the previous superintendent, never returned to the job, and Walter, at age 17, remained on the job.  When Mr. McIndoe died in 1872, a partnership was formed between John Stewart, Alexander Stewart and Walter Alexander.  In 1884, they incorporated the business under the name of the Alexander Stewart Lumber Company, with Walter Alexander as Secretary/Treasurer.  This business prospered and operated until it was sold in 1912 to the B. Heinemann Lumber Company.

 

When Alexander Stewart was elected to serve his district in Congress, Walter Alexander assumed the responsibilities as head of the company.  In 1900, he and several associates organized the Wausau Paper Mills Company.  This was followed by the organization of the Wisconsin Valley Improvement Company, the Wausau Street Railway Company, the Wisconsin Valley Electric Company, and the Marathon Paper Mills Company, of which Mr. Alexander was vice-president.  They also founded the Wisconsin-Arkansas Lumber Company and the Arkansas Land & Lumber Company.  His lumbering interests expanded until they included every branch of the business and touched every section where lumbering is carried on.  Mr. Alexander served as an officer and a board member on many of the related lumber and financial concerns of note. He was a prominent member of the Wausau Group.     

On February 12, 1874, Walter Alexander was united in marriage to Miss Sarah Strobridge, daughter of Cyrus C. & Lydia Strobridge.  Together they had eight children.  Several of their children later became very prominent in the Wausau business community.

 

Walter Alexander became ill while in Florida, and at age 77, died there on March 8, 1926.  He is buried in Pine Grove Cemetery in Wausau, WI.

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Other Information

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Date of Birth: 6/14/1849

Place of Birth: Scotland

Date of Death: 3/8/1926

Place of Death: Florida

Place of Burial: Pine Grove Cemetery Wausau

Race: W

Father's Birthplace: Scotland

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