Gustav Konstantin von Alvensleben, called Alvo von Alvensleben (born 25 July 1879 in

Neugattersleben Neugattersleben is a village and a former municipality in the district Salzlandkreis, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Since 1 January 2010, it is part of the town Nienburg.Vancouver, British Columbia Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. The ...

Canada and

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

USA.

Family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

He was a descendant of the German noble family von Alvensleben and was the third son of Werner von Alvensleben, later Werner von Alvensleben-Neugattersleben (1840-1928) and Anna von Veltheim (1853-1897) and had two sisters and four Brothers, including the businessman and politician

Werner von Alvensleben Werner von Alvensleben ( Neugattersleben, 4 July 1875 – Bremen-Vegesack, 30 June 1947) was a German businessman and politician. He was the second son of Werner Graf von Alvensleben-Neugattersleben (1840–1929) and Anna von Veltheim (1 ...

(1875-1947) and later president of the club Count Bodo von Alvensleben-Neugattersleben (1882-1961). The widow of his dead brother's 1914 Joachim (born 1872) was the

abbess An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa''), also known as a mother superior, is the female superior of a community of Catholic nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Copt ...

of the convent at

Heiligengrabe Heiligengrabe is a municipality in the Ostprignitz-Ruppin district, in Brandenburg, Germany. Geography The municipality counts 13 villages (''Ortsteil''): Blandikow, Blesendorf, Blumenthal, Grabow bei Blumenthal, Herzsprung, Jabel, Königsberg, Li ...

and General Manager of the Protestant mission station Armgard of Alvensleben. On 2 April 1908, he married a teacher in Vancouver Edith Westcott (1878-1964). From this marriage there were three children out: Margret (1909-2005), Gero (born 1910) and Bodo (1913-1988).

Early life

After attending the Institute of Cadets, he initially began a military career that he entered as a lieutenant. He made his unscheduled farewell and migrated to the Americas. This was because after a publicised argument his father no longer wanted to pay a supplementary allowance. After a brief stay in El Salvador, where he was working on the coffee farms of his older brother Joachim, he moved in the summer of 1904 finally to Vancouver (British Columbia) - with only four dollars in cash.

Life in Vancouver

First, he worked as a farm laborer, night watchman, fishermen, hunters and sellers of poultry through life, could then buy a boat and after a successful season working on the Fraser River he saved 1500 U.S. dollars. With this money, he continued to make progress forming a real estate and finance company in 1907, which was named Alvensleben Finance and General Investment Company. He switched to credit bilateral large ads in the ''

Vancouver Sun The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network. Published s ...

'' newspaper that he very quickly made known. He was also the cofounder in 1907 of the

Vancouver Stock Exchange The Vancouver Stock Exchange (VSE) was a stock exchange based in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was incorporated 1906. On November 29, 1999 the VSE was merged into the Canadian Venture Exchange (CDNX). History It was incorporated 1906 and was t ...

on which he was active. There on some days more than half the daily turnover were his transactions. His business was assisted by the assumption that as his father was a close friend of Kaiser Wilhelm he was investing his money and representing his business interests. This caused other Germans to wish to invest their funds alongside. In fact most of the Kaiser's investments were in German municipal securities and with the firm of Bleichroder.

Vancouver real estate boom

Vancouver experienced at this time a real estate boom and a strong economic upturn. Alvensleben succeeded in subsequent years, bringing much German and European capital for investment in British Columbia to mobilize and had significantly contributed to this upturn. This time he worked with his brother Werner, who also had emigrated to Vancouver. Around 1912 were in his company directly employs 50 staff and he had stakes in many companies, including Standard and Fish Fertilizer,

Standard Fisheries and Whaling Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object th ...

, Vancouver Timber and Trading, Queen Charlotte Iceland Fisheries, Indian River Park (Wigwam Inn),

German-Canadian Trust Company German Canadians (german: Deutsch-Kanadier or , ) are Canadian citizens of German ancestry or Germans who emigrated to and reside in Canada. According to the 2016 census, there are 3,322,405 Canadians with full or partial German ancestry. Some ...

Cassiar Mining Cassiar may refer to: *Cassiar, British Columbia, a ghost town in northern British Columbia * Stewart-Cassiar Highway, the northwesternmost highway in British Columbia * Cassiar Mountains, in northern British Columbia and southern Yukon *Cassiar ...

, Vancouver-Nanaimo Coal Mining and near Seattle the

Issaquah & Superior Mining Company Issaquah ( ) is a city in King County, Washington, United States. The population was 40,051 at the 2020 census. Located in a valley and bisected by Interstate 90, the city is bordered by the Sammamish Plateau to the north and the "Issaquah Al ...

across the border.

Issaquah & Superior Mining

The latter was at

Issaquah Issaquah ( ) is a city in King County, Washington, United States. The population was 40,051 at the 2020 census. Located in a valley and bisected by Interstate 90, the city is bordered by the Sammamish Plateau to the north and the " Issaquah Al ...

in King County in the U.S. state of Washington. Alvensleben became involved there in a restructuring after the mine through many years of labor disputes had been declared bankrupt. The contemporary accounts stated that the mine facilities have been modernized and more than 500 workers employed. The contemporary chroniclers report that Alvensleben created labor peace with "almost socialistic ideas" he restored it by paying fair wages, humane working conditions and fostering good opportunities for residential care and cooperated sensibly with the unions. The rehabilitation of the mine caused a boom in construction: "In 1913 in Issaquah will be more residential and commercial buildings have been built as in the two decades before". Alvensleben embodied in this time the "American Dream": He had by vigor, vision and entrepreneurial risk-taking within a few years advanced from a simple day laborer to become a millionaire in high finance. Even within his lifetime he was regarded as a legend and is now considered one of the great figures from the pioneering days of British Columbia's views.

First World War

The outbreak of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

led to an abrupt end of his economic empire. His assets were confiscated as enemy property. He had to escape an arrest, leaving Canada and settling in Seattle. Then in 1917 when the United States entered the war, he became suspected as a "spy". He was arrested by a business associate

Marshall Latham Bond Marshall Latham Bond was one of two brothers who were Jack London's landlords and among his employers during the autumn of 1897 and the spring of 1898 during the Klondike Gold Rush. They were the owners of the dog that London fictionalized as Bu ...

. He was held in the internment camps

Fort Douglas Camp Douglas was established in October 1862, during the American Civil War, as a small military garrison about three miles east of Salt Lake City, Utah, to protect the overland mail route and telegraph lines along the Central Overland Route. I ...

in the state of

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, from 1920 until he again dismissed. He was acquitted after the war though others in his organization were found guilty. Among his defenders was his arresting officer Marshall Bond. He then worked in real estate business and as a stockbroker in Seattle, but without his previous economic successes, he could not operate on the same scale again. In 1939 he was naturalized as an American citizen.

References

*F. Penberthy: "Alvo von Alvensleben. A Personal Sketch." In ''British Columbia Magazine'' (1911), p. 1303–1312 *Clarence B. Bagley: ''History of King County, Washington''. Chicago-Seattle 1929, Chapter 42 on Issaquah. *T.D. Regehr (ed): ''The Possibilities of Canada are Truly Great.'' Memoirs 1906–1924 by Martin Nordegg. Toronto 1971. *D.G. Paterson: "European Financial Capital and British Columbia: An Essay on the role of the Regional Entrepreneur," ''BC Studies'' 21 (1974) p. 33–47. *Ingrid E. Laue: ''Gustav von Alvensleben Alvo Constantinople (1879–1965): The Prussian Pioneering in British Columbia''. German-Canadian Historical Association, Inc. and Mecklenburg Historical Society of Upper Canada, Inc., Vancouver 1977. *David Cruise, ''Allison Griffiths: Fleecing the Lamb: The Inside Story of the Vancouver Stock Exchange''. Douglas & Mcintrye Ltd, 1987, Chapter 2: Alvo von Alvensleben, the First promoter, p. 17–30. *Jörg A. Nagler: "Enemy Aliens and Internment in World War I: Alvo von Alvensleben, Fort Douglas, Utah, A Case Study." ''Utah Historical Quarterly'' 58 (case 1990), p. 388–405. *Private Archives of Family v. Alvensleben e.V. {{DEFAULTSORT:Alvensleben, Gustav Konstantin von 1879 births 1965 deaths German emigrants to Canada German emigrants to the United States Gustav Konstantin Businesspeople from Seattle Businesspeople from Vancouver People from Saxony-Anhalt