ing members of the Church, and also as one of the most prominent men. The example which he set and the work he accomplished has been a shining light for the guidance of his posterity; and several of his sons are now among the in fluential men in this city and prominent in the affairs of the Church.

RED J. KIESEL. Among the successful merchants of Utah there is perhaps none better known throughout the western country than is Fred J. Kiesel, who not only has undoubtedly the largest exclusive wholesale grocery house in the State, his annual business amounting to considerably over a million dollars a year, but is heavily interested in a variety of paying enterprises throughout the West. He came to Utah as a young man of twenty-two years, and after a few years' chang ing about from one part of the country to an other, came to make Ogden his permanent abid ing place, and has risen to a position of influ ence among ber business men and financiers.

Mr. Kiesel was born May 19, 1841, in Lud wigsburg, Wurtemburg, Germany, where he grew to manhood and was educated in the schools of that country. He crossed the ocean in 1857, and after one year spent in New York City he went South, and while at Memphis, Tennessee, he enlisted in the Fourth Tennessee Infantry (Confederate) and served for twelve months in the army, after which he continued to journey, reaching Salt Lake City in July, 1863. From then until the spring of 1866 he migrated from one part of the country to another, opening stores which he disposed of in a short time. During this period he lived in Soda Springs, Idaho; Salt Lake City and Manti, Utah; again in Salt Lake City; Wellsville, Utah, and finally Ogden in the summer of 1866. However, the old fever of rest lessness was not yet quelled, and he disposed of his business in Ogden, and once more went to Idaho, locating first at Paris, and then at Montpelier. From the latter place he again came to Ogden in 1869, and the following spring opened a store at Ophir mining camp. That fall he sold out his business in Ogden and moved it to

Bingham, and the following fall disposed of his business at both Ophir and Bingham and went on a visit to his old home in Germany, where he spent a year.

On his return from Germany, Mr. Kiesel opened a store and forwarding house in Corinne, Utah, and conducted that business until the spring of 1879, at which time he opened a whole sale house in Ogden, but after conducting it a year, sold out to his partner and went to Toledo, Ohio, where he again started a wholesale grocery and liquor business. He returned to Ogden in the fall of 1881, and bought back his old business, which he has continued to operate up to the present time. Since then his business has had a most phenomenal growth, steadily increasing until he is the leading wholesale grocer in Utah. He incorporated the business in 1887 under the name of Fred J. Kiesel & Company, becoming President and Manager of the business, and still retains those positions. Besides the large force of clerks the firm has seven traveling men constantly on the road soliciting trade in the intermountain States.

As his means increased, Mr. Kiesel branched out in other directions. He did a large forwarding business in the northwest before the railroads came into the country, and still has heavy financial interests in Idaho and Oregon. Among the enterprises in which he is interested may be mentioned B. K. Block & Company, in which he is a large stockholder. At Arcadia, Oregon, he has a large stock and fruit farm, which comprises a thousand acres, and also a ranch at Palmer, Idaho, where he makes a specialty of breeding thoroughbred Hereford cattle and Percheron horses. He is President and the principal owner of a large forwarding business at Ontario, in the eastern part of Oregon, handling a stock of gen eral merchandise. Few men are more alive to the benefits accruing to the West from irrigation than Mr. Kiesel, and he has taken an active interest in all irrigation matters. In eastern Oregon and Idaho he has furnished a large amount of capital for irrigation ditches, which have been constructed through that portion of the country. In his forwarding business he has made it an object to follow along the lines of railroad con-