Peter Staub
| Peter Staub | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 22, 1827 Glarus Canton, Switzerland |
| Died | May 19, 1904 (aged 77) Knoxville, Tennessee, USA |
| Resting place | Old Gray Cemetery |
| Occupation | tailor, businessman, politician |
| Political party | Democratic Party |
| Spouse(s) | Rosina Blum |
Peter Staub (February 22, 1827 – May 19, 1904) was a Swiss-born American businessman, politician, and diplomat. He immigrated to the United States in 1854, and moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1856, where he lived for most of the remainder of his life. Staub served as mayor of Knoxville in the early 1870s and early 1880s, and built the city's first opera house, Staub's Theatre, in 1872. Staub also aided Swiss immigration to the Southern Appalachian region, helping establish what is now the town of Gruetli-Laager, Tennessee, in 1869. In 1885, President Grover Cleveland appointed Staub U.S. Consul to Switzerland.
Born in Switzerland, Staub was orphaned when he was eight years old. At age 13, he was apprenticed to a tailor, and worked in this trade in France and Switzerland throughout the 1840s. Staub married Rosina Blum in 1847. While living in Switzerland, they had two children, both of whom died at a young age. In 1854, Staub and his wife moved to the United States, initially settling in New Jersey.
Shortly after his arrival, Staub's health began to decline. Concluding he would benefit from a more mountainous environment, Staub decided to move to East Tennessee, often adverstised during this period as the "Switzerland of America." In 1856, Staub opened a tailor shop on Gay Street in Knoxville. During the Civil War, Staub's house on the periphery of Knoxville was burned by the Union Army to prevent Confederate soldiers from using it for shelter. He rebuilt it, and his tailoring business thrived in the post-war years. He reinvested his profits in real estate in the Knoxville area.
During the years following the Civil War, Knoxville gained a reputation for cultural backwardness that many of the city's residents found embarrassing. The Knoxville Whig and other newspapers called on the city's wealthy to fund construction of a respectable theater. In 1871, Staub announced he was building a three-story opera house at the corner of Gay and Cumberland, across the street from the Lamar House Hotel.
...
Wikipedia