G. W. Fehleisen

FEHLEISEN

Posted By: Linda Meyers (email)
Date: 5/14/2011 at 13:11:07

2ND OLDEST BUSINESSMAN RETIRES

G. W. Fehleisen, Madrid's second oldest business man, who for the past forty-two and a half years has been in active management of the Fehleisen Lumber Co., retired from active charge Friday evening.

Mr. Fehleisen is 82 years of age. During the past few years of his life his health has slowly failed and this was instrumental in bringing about this retirement.

His business career reads like an interesting novel. He came to the community just fourteen years after the railway came through Madrid and the nature of his business brought him here to figure largely in its booming days. With a twinkle in his eye he can show you many houses which the lumber he sold helped to build. He has kept an accurate check upon the intricacies of modern bookkeeping and although it has been many years since he received instruction along the lines of management he nevertheless would be an asset to any firm toward efficiency in the governing of the business.

Previous to Mr. Fehleisen's coming to Madrid he was associated for eight years with his brother, L. F. Fehleisen, in the lumber business in Boone. He came to Iowa as a babe with his parents from Indiana and lived his boyhood days in the eastern section of the state. As a youth he attended schools and later the University of Iowa from which he is a graduate civil engineer.

Eccentric in some things, Mr. Fehleisen can nevertheless show figures on the management of business which are little short of being marvelous for a gentleman of his age. Throughout his entire active business career he has kept an active check on his expenses and these figures are interesting to see.

In the first 22 years of his business he states that the management of the firm consisted mostly of opening early and closing late. During this period taxes amounted to but one to two percent, insurance amounted to about one-fourth to one-half of one percent, and bad accounts not over 2 per cent. The next ten years of his business then saw a gradual increase along all of these lines, until today Mr. Fehleisen states, that taxes in any business are about ten percent, insurance 6 per cent, and in some lines of business bad accounts amout to 10 per cent.

Another interesting feature of Mr. Fehleisen's business ia a ledger book of old accounts which he worked out. This ledger book conszists of accounts over a year old. It is now as large as his regular account book and shows that when an account reaches five years of age the chances are very slim that it will ever be paid.

The above figures were taken from accurate recordings which Mr. Fehleisen worked out, and he states that if the present trend of overhead keeps up on modern business there can only be one answer--and that is complete breakdown of our present system of doing business.

Mr. Fehleisen's lumber yard was not the first to be built in Madrid. S. L. Miles then was in the lumber business where the C. H. Reckseen yard now stands.

The Fehleisen lumber yard is a large one, the main building being 54x96 feet. The site yard was purchased from a man named Charley Wells.

Mr. Fehleisen has appointed A. M. Burnside of Boone to manage his affairs and it is probable that a man will be sent here to operate the business. Mr. Fehleisen will go to Boone in the very near future where he expects to make his home with his brother.

---from The Madrid Register-News November 17, 1938