Charles Augustus Strelinger

STRELINGER, Charles A. president Charles A. Strelinger Co., tools, supplies and machinery; born, Detroit 1856; son of Julien and Bertha (Schultz) Strelinger; educated in Detroit public schools; married at Detroit,1884, Mary Penfield. Began active career in employ of Arthur Glover, hardware, 1870, later becoming connected with T.B. Rayl & Co.; began in hardware business for himself, 1884, firm incorporating, 1898, as the Charles A. Strelinger Co., of which he has been president and general manager from time of organization. Member Board of Commerce. Republican. Presbyterian. Clubs: Detroit, Boylston. Office; Cor Bates and Congress Sts. Residence: 312 john R. St.

DETROIT AND WAYNE COUNTY 607 The Charles A. Strelinger Company dates its inception back to the year 1884, when Mr. Strehnger initiated business upon a somewhat modest scale, in a building on the corner of Woodward avenue and Larned street. He brought to bear excellent business experience, marked energy and progressive ideas, so that the success of the enterprise was cumulative and it eventually attained to such proportions as to demand wider facilities. He conducted the business individually until 1897, when the present stock company was organized, being incorporated under the laws of the state with a capital stock of one hundred thousand dollars, which was later increased to its present hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The company does a general wholesale and retail business in the handling of all kinds of tools, machinery and mechanics supplies, and the concern now ranks as one of the foremost of the kind in the United States, controlling a large and substantial trade and having unrivaled facilities. The headquarters of the company are established at Bates and Congress streets, where about forty thousand square feet of floor space are utilized. Charles A. Strelinger was born in Detroit, on the 4th of May, 1856, and is a son of Julian and Bertha (Schultz) Strelinger, both of whom were born in Austria. The father was reared and educated in his native land, where he remained until 1848, when he came to America, taking up his residence in Detroit in the same year. For some time he was here engaged in the manufacturing of vinegar and later he became identified with other lines of enterprise, including the ownership and operation of a brewery. He continued to reside in Detroit until 1897, when he removed to Chicago, where he passed the remainder of his life. He died in that city in 1906, at the venerable age of eighty-three years. The subject of this sketch was reared and educated in Detroit, where he was afforded the advantages of the public schools, and his first business experience was as errand boy in the hardware establishment of Glover Powell, with which concern he remained until T. B. Rayl Company succeeded them, in 1875. after which he remained with the latter concern until 1884. He was advanced to a position of distinctive responsibility and gained an intimate knowledge of all details of the business, so that he was well fortified for the successful management of his own allied enterprise, which he founded at the expiration of that period, or in 1884, as has already been stated. He was also one of the founders of the Leland Faulconer Company, later merged with the Cadillac Motor Car Company, and was secretary and treasurer of the company for a number of years. Though never an active factor in the arena of practical politics, Mr. Strelinger at all times manifests a loyal interest in public affairs of a local nature and observes his civic duties by exercising his franchise in support of the principles and policies of the Republican party. He is a member of the Board of Commerce and the Detroit and Boylston Clubs, and both he and his wife are members of Westminster Presbyterian church, of which he is a trustee. On the 1 6th of September, 1884, he married Miss Mary Penfield, a daughter of Williston S. Penfield, of Detroit, and they have two sons,- Gilbert Penfield and Seth Williston.