Ohio County, West Virginia    Biography of George W. LUTZ

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Submitted by <vickers225@worldnet.att.net>, March 2000
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume II,
pg. 262-253
BIO:  George W. Lutz, Wheeling, West Virginia

George W. Lutz.  Some of the biggest things that have been done in
Wheeling, whether commercial undertakings or enterprises of a strictly
public nature, acknowledge as one of their chief actuating sources and
inspiration George W. Lutz.  Mr. Lutz was born in Wheeling, became a
working factor in the city's industrial affairs when a boy, and in his
mature years his interests have been distributed among a large number of
Wheeling's best known industrial, financial and public undertakings.
	Mr. Lutz was born July 17, 1855.  His father, Sebastian Lutz, was born in
Alsace, Germany, in 1813, was reared in the Schwartswald of Alsace, and in
1837 came to the United States and located at Wheeling.  He was butcher by
trade, and for many years conducted the Old Home Hotel on Market Street,
opposite the site of the present auditorium.  He made that one of the
popular hostelries of the day.  Sebastian Lutz died at Wheeling in 1865. 
He was a democrat and a Catholic in religion.  His wife, Anna Treuschler,
was born in Alsace in 1829, and died at Wheeling in 1871.  The oldest of
their four children is Sophia A., living at Wheeling, widow of the late
George Hook, who was clerk of the Ohio County Court sixteen years and
cashier of the Germania Half Dollar Savings Bank, now the Half Dollar
Savings Bank of Wheeling.  The second child is George W. Lutz.  William
Lutz is a resident of Wheeling, interested in the Home Pearl Laundry
Company.  John J. Lutz, now a retired resident of St. Clairsville, Ohio,
was one of the founders of the Home Pearl Laundry Company.   By a previous
marriage, Sebastian Lutz had two children:    Charles P., a railroad
employee living in Chicago;  and Louisa, of Wheeling, widow of Fred Swartz.
	George W. Lutz attended parochial schools in Wheeling, also attend night
course in the Frazier Business College, where he was graduated in 1868, at
the age of thirteen.  He then went to work as an employee of the old
wheeling Tack Factory.  He remained there about a year, until injured,
nearly losing his left arm. Two years following he was in the Coen,
Armstrong & Coen Planing Mill, and then took up the business which has been
his central activity through all his active years, plumbing  and gas and
steam fitting.  For one year he worked with Jacob Hughes and then with
Trimble & Hornbrook, plumbers and gas fitter.  After four years he bough
the interest of Mr. Hornbrook in the establishment, and was an active
partner with Mr. Trimble for eighteen years.  On the death of Mr. Trimble
he continued the firm name of Trimble & Lutz, and in 1907 the Trimble &
Lutz Supply company was incorporated.  This is now the largest house in the
state doing a wholesale and jobbing business in plumbing, steam fitting and
gas supplies.  The corporation owns its large brick structure at 112-122
Nineteenth Street.  The present executive officers of the corporation are: 
H. A. Ebbert, president; P. H. Hornbrook, vice president;  Harry J. Lutz, a
nephew of George W. Lutz, secretary and treasure; while George W. Lutz was
president of the corporation until 1919, and has since been chairman of the
Board of directors.  This business was in early years merely a firm for
contracting in plumbing and gasfitting, but under Mr. Lutz's able
supervision expanded its facilities until its business is in the front rank
of its line.
	Ten years ago the most discussed project in Wheeling was the building of a
great auditorium, to occupy the historic site of the old market House and
Town Hall, a building that would furnish facilities for a city market place
and also a convention hall capable of entertaining large assemblages.  The
business man who was most persistent in keeping this project before the
people and who has been justly called the father of the auditorium is
George W. Lutz, who for a number of years has been and still is president
and director of the Market Auditorium Company.  The auditorium is one of
Wheeling's most important public buildings. It is 506 feet long by 50 feet
wide, was built at a cost of $160,000 and houses the public market, and
furnished quarters for the Chamber of Commerce on the second floor in
addition to the great auditorium or convention hall.
	During the past thirty or forty years Mr. Lutz has been identified with a
large number of commercial enterprises.  He is still president and director
of the Loveland Improvement Company of Wheeling, president and director of
the Utility Salt Company; a director of the Security Trust Company, the
Half Dollar Savings Bank, the Wheeling Tile Company, the Gee Electric
Company and the American Spar Company.  He is president of the West
Virginia State Fair Association, was for three years president of the
Wheeling Board of Trade, and is a member of the Country Club, the Fort
Henry Club, the Carroll Club, the Jack Bass Fishing Club, the Isaac Walton
Club, is a fourth degree Knight of Columbus and a member of Carroll Council
No. 504 of that order, and is a past exalted ruler of Wheeling Lodge No.
28, B. P. O. E.  Many definite acts of public spirit are credited to Mr.
Lutz.  It is recalled that at his own expense he installed twenty-three
flower beds on Virginia Avenue on Wheeling Island as a means of adorning
that section of the city.  With other citizens he was instrumental in
placing flower beds on the National Highway at Fulton and in building a
beautiful entrance at the city limits that has been greatly admired by the
motorists who pass through Wheeling over the National Highway.  Mr. Lutz
was a member of the various committees for selling the Liberty Loan quotas
and other drives in the city.  He is now engaged with the civic Committee,
acting as chairman and as a member of the Wheeling Improvement Association,
and is greatly interested in securing for wheeling its new filtration plant
and street lighting of Wheeling's principal streets.
	In 1887, at Wheeling, he married Miss Lugene E. Hornbrook, daughter of
Thomas and Triphenia Hornbrook, now deceased.  Her father was owner of the
noted Hornbrook Park, now known as Wheeling Park.  Mrs. Lutz died September
7, 1917.  Mr. Lutz has one of the finest homes in the city, at 308 South
Front Street and purchased a forty-five acre wooded farm for a summer home.