Spiegelberg Brothers

The Spiegelberg Brothers or the House of Spiegelberg Brothers, Santa Fe Traders was founded by Soloman Jacob Spiegelberg and Levi Spiegelberg in 1848. It was a thriving wholesale merchant partnership which included a grocery and dry goods store across from the Governor's Palace It was the first Jewish mercantile company in Santa Fe. The Spiegelberg brothers expanded to include four other brothers. They served as sutlers to the American military and as Indian traders. They later established and were major stockholders in the Second National Bank of Santa Fe. The reach of their numerous investments and the bank have been described as a regional business empire, spreading across large parts of the Southwest. Investments included mining operations, insurance, and real estate ventures.

Soloman Jacob Spielberg was the oldest of a family of ten children and the first to leave Germany. He arrived in Santa Fe via an ox train along the Santa Fe Trail. He worked there for E. Leitendorfer and company, or Houghton & Leidensdorfer Co. of St. Louis, until joining the Doniphan campaign to Chihuahua, for whom he may have acted as sutler. During the campaign, he used his savings and credit to outfit his goods and transportation, allowing him an opportunity to engage in southern trade. Following the war, he was appointed as sutler for the United States Army at Fort Marcy. Levi arrived in New Mexico in 1848, when Spigelberg Brothers was founded, followed by Elias (1850), Emmanuel (1853), Lehman (1857), and the youngest, Willi (1861). By 1852 Solomon Jacob was doing well enough to advance the territorial legislature four thousand dollars to pay its members salaries, until repaid within the following year. In addition to managing Spiegelberg Brothers, the brothers established themselves as traders with the Native Americans. The first trading license at Fort Defiance was issued to Lehman after the Navajos were moved to the reservation in the summer 1868. Willi was the first trader at Fort Wingate, also in the summer of 1868, and later became sutler to the Navajo Indian Agency.

Floyd S. Fierman wrote that the Spiegelbergs revolutionized the retail business and its territory, attracting many Spanish-Americans from the villages into the towns, where they could buy either for cash or on credit without feeling cheated, or losing their land if they fell behind in their payments. Willi's wife, Flora, recalled that all five brothers joined the Masonic order, and that in the early fifties, Solomon was among its first members.

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