Ernst Kohlberg

KOHLBERG, ERNST (1857–1910). Ernst Kohlberg, El Paso civic leader and founder of the first cigar factory in the Southwest, was born on May 24, 1857, in Beverungen, Westphalia, at that time a province of Prussia. Although Kohlberg was a member of the Republican party in heavily Democratic El Paso, he was easily elected to the city council in 1893. He and his wife organized the Mount Sinai Jewish Congregation in 1898, and he was a member of various clubs and organizations, including the Progress Club for German Jews, the Masons, the Shriners, the Elks, the Pioneer Society, and the McGinty Club. Kohlberg was also a director of the Terminal Association, established in 1901 to develop the Union Depot Corporation, and of the Rio Grande Valley Bank and Trust Company. He was a founder of the El Paso Electric Railway Company and the El Paso Electric Light Company. He was also the owner of the St. Regis Hotel, the site of the 1909 meeting between United States president William Howard Taft and Mexican president Porfirio Díaz, and the St. Charles Hotel in El Paso. Kohlberg leased the St. Charles to a man named John Leech, a compulsive gambler who fell far behind in his rent. Kohlberg turned the matter over to his attorney, but on June 17, 1910, Leech confronted Kohlberg and demanded that he withdraw his suit. Kohlberg refused, whereupon Leech drew a revolver and killed him. Leech was sentenced to life imprisonment at Huntsville but was pardoned in 1934 by Governor Miriam A. Ferguson. Tom Lea later used Kohlberg as the prototype for the character of Ludwig Sterner in his novel The Wonderful Country.