Hall County NEGenWeb
Biographies
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CHARLES W. BIERBOWER, editor and proprietor of the Enterprise, at Doniphan,
has made it one of the best known and most valuable advertising mediums of
the many well conducted newspapers in this section of the state. Mr.
Bierbower is a practical printer, having served his apprenticeship at the
case and is familiar with every detail of newspaper work and printing house
industry.
Charles W. Bierbower was born in 1889, in Hamilton County, Nebraska, a son
of Jonathan and Margaret (Cavett) Bierbower, the former of whom was born in
Ohio in 1846, and the latter in Indiana in 1850. Of their twelve children.
Charles W. was the ninth in order of birth, the others being as follows:
Jacob, who is deceased; John, connected with the Giltner Lumber Company,
Giltner, Nebraska; Martin, a farmer on he old homestead; Leslie, also a
farmer on the old homestead in Hamilton County; William, a contractor at
Giltner; Frank, who conducts a fruit farm in California; J. D., who lives
in Giltner; James C., editor of the Gazette, at Giltner; Mary, the wife of
E. O. McKibben, who operates an elevator at Geneva, Nebraska; Ruth,
bookkeeper in the Giltner State bank; and Margaret, the wife of Hubert Cox,
a farmer near Giltner. The father of the above family, Jonathan Bierbower,
removed from Ohio to Iowa when a boy, from there to McLean County,
Illinois, where he worked on a farm until he enlisted for service in the
Civil War. He was only seventeen years old at the time but was accepted in
the Thirty-fourth Illinois Infantry, in which he served under General Grant
in Virginia. After the war was over he returned to Illinois and engaged in
farming there until 1889, when he came to Nebraska and subsequently bought
two hundred and forty acres of land in Hamilton County, which he still owns
although he retired from active farm work in 1906 and moved to Giltner. He
placed many substantial improvements on his land and made his farm
industries profitable. He is a member of the Presbyterian church as was his
wife. In politics he is a Republican and he belongs to the Grand Army of
the Republic.
Charles W. Bierbower attended the country school near his father's farm and
later in the high school near Giltner. When seventeen years old he started
to learn the printing business under C. H. Stall. Those who have followed
Mr. Bierbower's career with interest will not be slow in asserting that his
choice of a vocation was a wise one. In 1912 in association with his next
older brother, James C. Bierbower, he bought the Giltner Gazette, and
retained his interest for six years, in the meanwhile making it a first
class newspaper. He then came to Doniphan where he bought the Enterprise,
and as before immediately brought to bear the business capacity that has
resulted in the expansion of every department of the Enterprise plant,
doubling the subscription list, increasing the advertising, and turning out
the finest kind of job work. From a small town paper he has made this
journal influential all through this part of the state, not, however in the
interest of any political party., for Mr. Bierbower is an independent
voter.
Mr. Bierbower married Miss Llewellyn Talbert, who was born at Trumbull,
Clay County, Nebraska, and they have one child, Charlotte, who resides at
home. Mr. Bierbower belongs to the Masonic fraternity, also to the Modern
Woodmen and Woodmen of the World orders. His father's honorable military
record has always been a source of pride to him as also that of his eldest
brother, Jacob Bierbower, now deceased, who served in the Spanish-American
war and took part in the capture of Manilla.
Transcribed by Larry Coates
History of Hall County
by Buechler, Barr, & Stough (Published 1920)
Transcribed by Larry Coates
