Kohlsaat and Company, Commercial Bakery and Lunch Establishment, Chicago, Illinois.

Herman Henry (H. H.) Kohlsaat was born March 22, 1853, in Albion, Edwards County, Illinois, one of six children of Reimer and Sarah (Hall) Kohlsaat. Reimer and Sarah Kohlsaat were abolitionists whose home was reportedly a station on the Underground Railroad. The Kohlsaat family moved to Galena, Illinois, in 1854, and they moved to Chicago in 1865.

He became a traveling salesman, eventually working for Blake, Shaw, and Company at Adams & Clinton, a wholesale bakery owned by R. Nelson Blake, who was to become Kohlsaat’s father-in-law. In 1880 Kohlsaat married Mabel E. Blake and became a junior partner of Blake, Shaw, and Company in charge of a bakery-lunch establishment in the city.

In 1883 he brought out Blake, Shaw, and Company’s interest in the establishment. He started H.H. Kohlsaat and Company, which was one of the largest baking establishments in Chicago for about thirty years.

CHICAGO WHITE PAGES, JUNE 1908:

H.H. Kohlstaat Resident Address: 186 Lincoln Park Boulevard, Chicago

H.H. Kohlstaat & Company (Wholesale Bakery): 1701 South Wabash, Chicago

H. H. Kohlsaat Bakery, east side of the 1700 block S. Wabash Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.

He opened several lunch stores, which drew good patronage from the businessmen of the Loop district.

In 1888 Kohlsaat was an alternate delegate at the Republican national convention held in Chicago. He became an early supporter of William McKinley, then Governor of Ohio, working for his nomination and election to the presidency in 1896. Kohlsaat was a friend, confidant, and advisor of five United States Presidents: McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, and Harding.

In 1891, Kohlsaat purchased a half-interest in the Chicago newspaper Inter-Ocean. In 1894 Kohlsaat abandoned his interest in the Inter-Ocean and purchased the Chicago Times-Herald and the Evening Post. He converted the papers from Democratic to independent Republican organs.

His influence in the Republican Party helped draft the gold-standards plank during the 1896 convention in St. Louis. McKinley’s ensuing campaign for the presidency against free Silverite William Jennings Bryan was ultimately won on the gold standard issues.

In 1901 Kohlsaat purchased the Chicago Record from Victor F. Lawson and combined it with the Times-Herald, naming the new paper the Record-Herald. Kohlsaat resigned the editorship of the Record-Herald for a time to devote himself to his real estate interests but later regained control in 1910. He remained editor of the Record-Herald for two years, and then he returned to edit the Inter-Ocean. Kohlsaat left the Inter-Ocean after a year and became a member of the staff of the New York Times.

Kohlsaat died October 17, 1924, in Washington, D.C., at the home of Herbert Hoover.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.