Ernest Heinrich Wemme (1861–1914) was a German businessman and philanthropist who came to prominence in
Portland
Portland most commonly refers to:
* Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States
* Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...
Oregon
Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
. He was an active business investor during the pioneering era of
automobile
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with Wheel, wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, pe ...
s and
aviation
Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...
.
Biography
A farmer's son born in the village of Crostau, Kingdom of Saxony, as Ernest Heinrich Wemme, he had only a grade-school education. Facing enrollment in the German army, he immigrated to the United StatesE. Henry Wemme Endowment Fund, by Omar Spencer, c. 1953 at 18 years of age, not intending to stay. He later said he "went broke and couldn't get away."
According to an account published in 1932 by August Wemme, his brother, Henry Wemme began his career in Portland in 1883, "with a spool of thread and a needle or two as capital."Wemme, August Goths and Vandals of The Wemme Cases (1932) /ref>
One of his ventures was as a supplier of
tent
A tent () is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over, attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using gu ...
s and other supplies to those joining the Klondike Gold Rush. Wemme purchased canvas and cotton, having more material "than all the rest of the dealers on the coast put together", just as the boom to Alaska came to an end. However, the large payments for excess materials occurred just as the
USS Maine
Four ships of the United States Navy have borne the name USS ''Maine'', named for the 23rd state:
* , was a battleship whose 1898 sinking precipitated the Spanish–American War.
* , launched in 1901, was the lead ship of her class of battleships ...
was sunk, starting the
Spanish–American War
, partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence
, image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg
, image_size = 300px
, caption = (clock ...
. Wemme was given an order for 32,000 tents, plus "an open order for hospital tents, telling me to make all I could." Instead of going bankrupt, Wemme used up his large surplus of materials and made a substantial profit.
Wemme owned the first automobile in Oregon, a Stanley Steamer bought in 1899 from what became the Locomobile Company of America. He also introduced other automobiles to the Portland area, including a
Haynes-Apperson
Haynes-Apperson Company was a manufacturer of Brass Era automobiles in Kokomo, Indiana, from 1896 to 1905. It was the first automobile manufacturer in Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-l ...
, an
Oldsmobile
Oldsmobile or formally the Oldsmobile Division of General Motors was a brand of American automobiles, produced for most of its existence by General Motors. Originally established as "Olds Motor Vehicle Company" by Ransom E. Olds in 1897, it produ ...
Pierce-Arrow
The Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company was an American motor vehicle manufacturer based in Buffalo, New York, which was active from 1901 to 1938. Although best known for its expensive luxury cars, Pierce-Arrow also manufactured commercial trucks ...
. He was president of the Portland Automobile Association. Each of his successive cars bore the Oregon license plate #1.
In 1906 he sold Willamette Tent & Awning to Max S. Hirsch (who had worked for his relatives at the Meier & Frank department store for the previous 20 years and sold his M&F stock for $50,000 in order to finance the purchase of Wemme's business. The firm became known as Hirsch-Weis and then White Stag). Wemme invested most of his wealth in downtown Portland real estate. In 1910, he was a noted advocate for building the Columbia River Highway.
In 1912, Wemme bought the Barlow Toll Road for $5,400. He built bridges and made other improvements worth $25,000, then gave it to the people of Oregon as a free highway.Wemme, Oregon is an unincorporated area along the
Mount Hood Corridor
The Mount Hood Corridor is a part of Oregon between Sandy and Government Camp, in Clackamas County. It is named after Mount Hood and has served travelers going in both directions since the days of Native Americans and Oregon Trail migrants. Th ...
and is named after him.
He at least briefly turned his attention to aviation, becoming the
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...
agent for the
biplane
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...
s by
Curtiss
Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company (1909 – 1929) was an American aircraft manufacturer originally founded by Glenn Hammond Curtiss and Augustus Moore Herring in Hammondsport, New York. After significant commercial success in its first decade ...
. One of his automobile salesmen,
Eugene Ely
Eugene Burton Ely (October 21, 1886 – October 19, 1911) was an American aviation pioneer, credited with the first shipboard aircraft take off and landing.
Background
Ely was born in Williamsburg, Iowa, and raised in Davenport, Iowa. Having c ...
volunteered to fly Wemme's first Curtiss biplane to Oregon. Ely crashed without serious injury, and soon went to work for Curtiss.
He developed the Overlook neighborhood in North Portland.
"As for his personality, Wemme usually dressed like a poverty-stricken laborer. He seldome wore pressed clothes or had his shoes shined and he was generally unshaven. He was always mouthing an unlighted cigar, the liquid qualities of which ran down both sides of his mouth and chin. He worked like a horse and lived like a hermit." He never married.
Wemme died December 17, 1914 in Short Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles; he is buried in Riverview Cemetery in Portland, Oregon. Wemme's brother's book bemoans a probate dispute over "an estate appraised at more than a million dollars…"; the book was written to
get before the American people…the facts as how E. Henry Wemme's
will
Will may refer to:
Common meanings
* Will and testament, instructions for the disposition of one's property after death
* Will (philosophy), or willpower
* Will (sociology)
* Will, volition (psychology)
* Will, a modal verb - see Shall and will
...
was set aside, rendered null and void, and how both heirs of his body and the E. Henry Wemme Endowment Fund (now administered by the Oregon Community Foundation) was pillaged and plundered and dissipated, and to show how and why I have been cast into prison, where I still languish at the age of sixty three…
August Wemme later lived in a "skid row hotel" in Portland, and in an apparent bout of senility, left a suitcase filled with gold from his inheritance on a train in Chicago.
Wemme's will, drawn and executed by Portland lawyer and friend,
George W. Joseph
George W. P. Joseph (May 10, 1872 – June 17, 1930) was an attorney and Republican politician in the U.S. state of Oregon. A native of California, his family relocated to Oregon when he was young. There he would practice law and serve in the Ore ...
, bequeathed half to the Christian Science Church and half to German heirs. The dispute evolved into a major political fracas, going as far as the
Oregon Supreme Court
The Oregon Supreme Court (OSC) is the highest state court in the U.S. state of Oregon. The only court that may reverse or modify a decision of the Oregon Supreme Court is the Supreme Court of the United States.Governor of Oregon, though he died shortly after earning the Republican Party's nomination. The case ultimately went to the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
before the estate was divided among several heirs in the U.S. and Germany.
Ultimately, half of his estate went to "found and maintain a large home for wayward girls". It is now known as the Salvation Army White Shield Home in Northwest Portland, located at . It serves pregnant teens and young mothers who are in the foster system, typically due to being from a violent or abusive family.
See also
* Bull Run Hydroelectric Project – a hydroelectric project of the Mount Hood Company, which Wemme owned for part of the time
References
Sources
* Books by
E. Kimbark MacColl
E is the fifth letter of the Latin alphabet.
E or e may also refer to:
Commerce and transportation
* €, the symbol for the euro, the European Union's standard currency unit
* ℮, the estimated sign, an EU symbol indicating that the weigh ...