Bio: Ritter, Franz (1852 - 19??)

Contact: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Ritter, Deutsch, Stahl, Langenhahn, Schlatter

----Source: History of Marathon County Wisconsin and Representative Citizens, by Louis Marchetti, 1913.

Ritter, Franz (26 October 1852 - 19??)

Franz Ritter, president of the Ritter & Deutsch Furniture and Undertaking Company at Wausau, occupying the corner of Third and Jefferson streets, has been identified with the business since 1884. He was born in Erfurt, Prussia-Germany, October 26, 1852, and in his own land attended school and there learned the cabinet-making trade.

In 1871, when nineteen years of age, Mr. Ritter came to the United States and immediately joined his brothers who were living at Milwaukee, Wis., and there he worked in their furniture store for a time. In order to see the country he then started out to travel in Kansas and other states and stopped at Chicago and St. Louis before returning to Milwaukee, where he resumed work at his trade until he came to Wausau and went into business in 1884 with a partner, the firm name being Ritter & Stahl. Later, F. M. Deutsch bought the Stahl interest and it was conducted as a co-partnership until 1910, when it was incorporated as the Ritter & Deutsch Company, its officers being: Franz Ritter, president; Edward Langenhahn, vice president; R. C. Deutsch, secretary and treasurer; and F. M. Deutsch, general manager. The company owns its quarters and this is by far the largest establishment of its kind in this city. Its proprietors are men of capital and high personal standing and it is justly numbered with the representative business concerns of Marathon County.

Franz Ritter was married in May, 1880, to Miss Louisa Schlatter, of Milwaukee. They are members of St. Paul's Reformed Church. He is a man of social tastes and belongs to the Beavers, the Woodmen of America, is president of the Sharpshooters' Club, for twenty-three years has been secretary of the D. G. K. U., and is a member and has been president of the Liederkranz Singing Society.