Michael Liebel Jr. (December 12, 1870 – August 8, 1927) was an early 20th-century American businessman and politician who served as the

Mayor of Erie, Pennsylvania This is a list of the people who have served as mayor of the city of Erie, Erie County, in northwestern Pennsylvania. Erie's city government consists of a mayor and a city council. The mayor's office includes an elected city treasurer and city ...

, from 1906 to 1911, and a Democratic member of the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...

for one term from

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, from 1915 to 1917.

Early life

Liebel was born December 12, 1870, in

Erie, Pennsylvania Erie is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, fifth-most populous city in Pennsylvania and the most populous in Northwestern Pen ...

, and is the son of Michael and Clara (née Uhr) Liebel. His father, Michael Liebel Sr. was born June 17, 1843, in Germany and was the son of John and Barbara (née Hammer) Liebel, who also lived in

. Michael Jr. was one of three sons: Eugene Liebel, who died in 1923, and Frederick W. Liebel, who died in 1896. His father was 14 years old when he came with his parents to

Erie Erie is a city on the south shore of Lake Erie and the county seat of Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in Pennsylvania and the most populous in Northwestern Pennsylvania with a population of 94,831 ...

from their native Germany. He served an apprenticeship at the

shoemaking Shoemaking is the process of making footwear. Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand, often by groups of shoemakers, or '' cordwainers'' (sometimes misidentified as cobblers, who repair shoes rather than make them). In the 18th cen ...

trade, and in 1861 he started his own boot and shoe business, which he continued for five years. He invested in local real estate with his brother

Reinhard Liebel Reinhard Liebel (January 31, 1841 – March 11, 1905) was a businessman and politician from Erie, Pennsylvania. Reinhard was a member of the Liebel family, which was one of the oldest and most prominent families in Erie. Early life Reinhard was ...

, which eventually became very extensive before his death in May 1906. Michael Jr. was educated in the

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

and

parochial Parochial is an adjective which may refer to: * Parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a ...

schools of Erie and attended

Canisius College Canisius University is a private Jesuit university in Buffalo, New York. It was founded in 1870 by Jesuits from Germany and is named after St. Peter Canisius. Canisius offers more than 100 undergraduate majors and minors, and around 34 ma ...

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

, graduating in 1887.

Career

After graduating from college, Liebel was an accountant in the Buffalo office of the

Nickel Plate Railroad The New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad , abbreviated NYC&St.L, was a railroad that operated in the mid-central United States from 1881 to 1964. Commonly referred to as the "Nickel Plate Road", the railroad served parts of the states of ...

for five years. He then returned to Erie, where he was employed in the office of Jackson Koehler, at that time conducting one of the leading breweries of this section of the state, for another five years. In 1898, he organized the Cascade Brewing Company, and was corporate secretary and treasurer until 1890 when it was consolidated with the Erie Brewing Company, which operated until prohibition.

Mayor of Erie

A member of the Democratic party, Liebel served as

, from 1906 to 1911. His first term started in September, 1906, when he received the appointment to fill a vacancy caused by the death of

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...

Robert J. Saltsman. In the subsequent election of 1907, he was chosen by the popular vote to fill the remainder of the unexpired term until April 1, 1908. Liebel served in office as Mayor until 1911. After leaving office as Mayor, Liebel organized and became president of the Vulcan Rubber Company which manufactured tires, tubes and hard rubber accessories.

United States House of Representatives

Liebel ran and was elected the Democratic representative of the 25th district of Pennsylvania to the Sixty-fourth Congress serving in that office from March 4, 1915, until March 4, 1917. While in office, he served on the Naval Committee. In 1916, Liebel challenged A. Mitchell Palmer of Stroudsburg to be the National Committeemean of the Pennsylvania State Democratic Party, but was defeated by Palmer. He was not a candidate for renomination and after retiring from political office in 1917, he resumed his former business activities as president of the Vulcan Rubber Company, as well as President of the Erie Reduction Company, an Erie-based

fertilizer A fertilizer or fertiliser is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from liming materials or other non-nutrient soil amendments. Man ...

manufacturer, with offices in

Sandusky, Ohio Sandusky ( ) is a city in Erie County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Situated on the southern shore of Lake Erie, Sandusky is located roughly midway between Toledo, Ohio, Toledo ( west) and Cleveland ( east). At the 2020 United Stat ...

Delegate to the Democratic National Convention

Liebel was a delegate to five

Democratic National Convention The Democratic National Convention (DNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 18 ...

s. His first, while Mayor of Erie, was the

1908 Democratic National Convention The 1908 Democratic National Convention took place from July 7 to July 10, 1908, at Denver Auditorium Arena in Denver, Colorado. The event is widely considered a significant part of Denver's political and social history. The convention The 1 ...

followed by the

1912 This year is notable for Sinking of the Titanic, the sinking of the ''Titanic'', which occurred on April 15. In Albania, this leap year runs with only 353 days as the country achieved switching from the Julian to Gregorian Calendar by skippin ...

, and the 1916 Convention as a member of the United States House of Representatives. He continued to attend the Conventions as a delegate after leaving elected office, attending the

1920 Events January * January 1 ** Polish–Soviet War: The Russian Red Army increases its troops along the Polish border from 4 divisions to 20. ** Kauniainen in Finland, completely surrounded by the city of Espoo, secedes from Espoo as its ow ...

, and

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20–January 30, 30 – Kuomintang in Ch ...

Conventions.

Personal life and death

Liebel was a lifelong member of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

and belonged to the

Elks The Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset (ELKS), formerly known as Linux-8086, is a Linux-like operating system kernel. It is a subset of the Linux kernel, intended for 16-bit computers with limited processor and memory resources such as machines pow ...

Eagles Eagle is the common name for the golden eagle, bald eagle, and other birds of prey in the family of the Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of Genus, genera, some of which are closely related. True eagles comprise the genus ''Aquila ( ...

and

Moose The moose (: 'moose'; used in North America) or elk (: 'elk' or 'elks'; used in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is the world's tallest, largest and heaviest extant species of deer and the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is also the tal ...

lodges. He was described as "an enterprising and progressive business man" who was "widely known." Liebel died in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, Pennsylvania, in 1927, and is interred was at Trinity Cemetery in Erie. Liebel lived in a home built by his father in 1882 known as the "Michael Liebel House," at 139 West 21st Street in

. The mansion is an 8,198 sq. ft.

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the arch ...

, centered on a large lot and constructed of buff-colored brick. It features a massive porch with

Corinthian columns The Corinthian order (, ''Korinthiakós rythmós''; ) is the last developed and most ornate of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order, which was the earliest, ...

and a bracketed dentiled

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

. Three pedimented dormers adorn the roof which is accented with a cornice matching that of the porch roof. The "Michael Liebel House" is part of the West 21st Street Historic District that was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1990. The home was used as the "Merle E. Wood Funeral Home" until 1992. Currently, the "Village at Luther Square," a domestic care provider, owns the building and uses is as a domestic care home that houses several elderly Erieites. VALS purportedly invested over $300,000 in refurbishing this building for its current use.

References

External links

* *
The Political Graveyard
{{DEFAULTSORT:Liebel Jr., Michael 1870 births 1927 deaths Mayors of Erie, Pennsylvania Canisius University alumni Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania Liebel family 20th-century mayors of places in Pennsylvania 20th-century members of the United States House of Representatives