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GEORGE H. LOUNSBERRY. On the basis of proved achievement and accomplishment, the name of George H. Lounsberry is synonymous with building construction in and around Duluth. As a general contractor he has been in business many years, and probably no other contractor can exhibit a better proportioned list and group of important building work than Mr. Lounsberry.
He was born at Fairmont, Minnesota, April 29, 1869, a son of Colonel C. A. and Victoria (Hoskins) Lounsberry. His father was a native of the state of New York and his mother of Michigan. Colonel Lounsberry has long been a prominent man in the northwestern country. He was postmaster and at one time publisher of the Tribune at Bismarck, North Dakota, and about 1885 helped established the News Tribune of Duluth. For many years past his home has been in the state of Washington, where he does special land agent work and is now seventy-six years of age. Of his five children four are living.
The second oldest of the family, George H. Lounsberry acquired his early education in a seminary at Bismarck, North Dakota, but has been practically earning his own living since he was ten years of age. As a boy he carried messages and papers, and at the age of seventeen began an apprenticeship at the carpenter’s trade. He worked as a journeyman seven years, and at Duluth entered building construction work with George Smith, under the firm name of Lounsberry & Smith. This partnership continued four years and since then Mr. Lounsberry has been in business alone as a general contractor. Since August, 1916, his business offices and headquarters have been in his own building at 322
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East Superior street. He is a master of details of every phase of the building industry. He has assembled a large force of competent and skilled workers, and has a large amount of capital invested in equipment of every kind for the handling of some of the very largest contracts involved in building construction. He has erected some of the largest building blocks in Duluth, and a number of years ago carried out contracts involving upwards of a million dollars in the construction of houses of the “Model Town” of the United States Steel Corporation, has built bridges and many public buildings, including U. S. Grant and Park Point school houses, the telephone building at Duluth, and many others. Ten years ago Mr. Lounsberry helped organize the Verna Brick Company, and is vice-president of that industry.
Fraternally, he is affiliated with the various branches of Masonry, including everything up to the thirty-third degree of the Scottish Rite. He is a member of the Commercial Club and the Builders Exchange and is a Republican in political affiliations.
At Duluth July 15, 1896, he married Miss Margaret Harrington, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Harrington, who came from Ireland. Four children have been born to their marriage: Paige Lounsberry, born in 1898; Harlow, born in 1903; Sylvia, born in 1906; and Jessica, born in 1910. The younger children are still attending school at Duluth, while Paige, the oldest, after completing the work of the Duluth schools, finished his education in Culver Military Academy in Indiana and is now associated with his father.
Source:
Duluth and St. Louis County Minnesota, Their Story and People
Volume III
Edited by Walter Van Brunt
The American Historical Society, Chicago and New York, 1921