Henry August Lorberg (1856–1943) was an American journalist, entrepreneur, and local historian of

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

and

Scioto County, Ohio Scioto County is a county located along the Ohio River in the south central region of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 74,008. Its county seat is Portsmouth. The county was founded March 24, 1804, from Adams C ...

. He was the son of German immigrants. His father, August Lorberg, (1825–1899), was a tailor in Portsmouth. Lorberg was instrumental in securing a $50,000 contribution from

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...

for the construction of the

Portsmouth Public Library Portsmouth Public Library may refer to: *Portsmouth Public Library (Ohio) The Portsmouth Public Library is a public library located near downtown Portsmouth, Ohio, United States. It has served the city since 1879. The library has four branch l ...

in 1901. Library construction was completed in 1906. The library continues to serve Portsmouth and Scioto County with four branch locations. Lorberg worked as a reporter for the

Portsmouth Times ''Portsmouth Daily Times'' is a morning newspaper in Scioto County, Ohio with a print circulation of about 10,000. It was first printed in 1852 and printed Monday through Saturday, except Christmas Day. The newspaper is a member of the Associated P ...

and other local newspapers, for many years. Lorberg wrote and published several books of local history, including "Recollections of 50 Years", "The Centennial Souvenir of Portsmouth", "Portsmouth Past and Present", etc. These books contained many photographs and stories of Portsmouth's early history. Lorberg's 136-page, 1908 book, "Pictorial Portsmouth, the Peerless City, Past and Present", was well received. The reviewer called it "the finest thing of its kind the Times has ever seen...The portraits include most of the people who have ever been prominent in Portsmouth, many of whom are dead, many being still alive and among our active citizens." Around 1901, Lorberg traveled with

evangelist Evangelist may refer to: Religion * Four Evangelists, the authors of the canonical Christian Gospels * Evangelism, publicly preaching the Gospel with the intention of spreading the teachings of Jesus Christ * Evangelist (Anglican Church), a c ...

Billy Sunday William Ashley "Billy" Sunday (November 19, 1862 – November 6, 1935) was an American outfielder in baseball's National League and widely considered the most influential American evangelist during the first two decades of the 20th century. Bo ...

on a preaching tour from New York City to Omaha, Nebraska. In 1914, Lorberg was reported to be in "charge of postcard and literature sales in connection with the Billy Sunday meetings."

Souvenirs and postcards

Lorberg retired from newspaper journalism in 1902. "Henry A. Lorberg has resigned his position on the Daily Times reportorial staff, and will devote his time to his mail order business, which has grown to large proportions and has become very profitable." A significant part of Lorberg's business was the publication and distribution of

postcard A postcard or post card is a piece of thick paper or thin cardboard, typically rectangular, intended for writing and mailing without an envelope. Non-rectangular shapes may also be used but are rare. There are novelty exceptions, such as wood ...

s featuring over 2,500 local landscape scenes, beginning in the late 1800s. Lorberg's black and white photographs of everyday local scenes were sent to Germany where they were

colorized Film colorization (American English; or colourisation [British English], or colourization [Canadian English and Oxford English]) is any process that adds color to black-and-white, sepia tone, sepia, or other monochrome moving-pi ...

and reproduced as postcards. These were returned across the Atlantic and sold in local stores. In 1915, World War I blocked the import of any more postcards from Germany, and Lorberg began using printing companies within the United States. Lorberg also maintained coin-operated scales around the city in the early 1900s. "Henry Lorberg received another consignment of penny weighing machines Thursday and has placed them at advantageous points about town. One was stationed at the northeast entrance to York Place."

Portsmouth Indian Head Rock

In 1908 Lorberg put forward a proposal to preserve and display the

Indian Head Rock The Indian Head Rock is an eight-ton sandstone boulder, which had rested at the bottom of the Ohio River, until September 2007 when it was retrieved by a group of local divers, led by amateur historian Steve Shaffer of Ironton, Ohio. The recover ...

, a large boulder in the Ohio River with a strong connection to Portsmouth history. "Henry Lorberg is going to communicate with the light house department with a view to having the snag boat Woodruff pull up the Indian rock, the idea of Mr. Lorberg being to have the city place the historic bowlder icin York park, in a position overlooking the river...Portsmouth is the River City and to preserve the rock in the manner referred to would be highly appropriate." Lorberg's proposal was not acted upon. Lorberg wrote about the Indian Head Rock in one of his histories of the City of Portsmouth. "Indian Rock on the Kentucky shore opposite Court Street, could be seen in 1875...Many young men carved their initials on it, and an Indian head was also cut in the stone. The Rock could only be seen when the Ohio was extremely low--about once in a decade; but since the River Dams have been built, it is now entirely out of view, and has probably been seen for the last time by the present generation. It served as a good diving point for boys who went swimming in the River. Henry Bannon’s History of Scioto County gives a more detailed description of the rock." Lorberg also promoted the Indian Head Rock by featuring it in his popular souvenir postcards of the Portsmouth area.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lorberg, Henry 1856 births 1943 deaths People from Portsmouth, Ohio Journalists from Ohio Historians from Ohio