Ahles, John E.

AHLES

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 10/7/2019 at 18:14:16

John E. Ahles

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p.4, Council Bluffs)
John E.Ahles, blacksmith, Council Bluffs, came to this city in 1856, and was employed on the Utah expedition against the Mormons, and shortly afterward was engaged by the Western Stage Co. to conduct their blacksmith shops located here. In 1860, he started in business for himself, and carried it on with great success. In 1859, he went to California, but returned the following year. While absent, he was engaged in an Indian fight, and he still carries a ball in his body as a token of remembrance of that occasion. When Abraham Lincoln was here in 1858, he (subject) was instructed by N. S. Bates, city agent of the Western Stage Co., and also an old neighbor of Mr. Lincoln's to show him all possible courtesy, and to take him down on the bottom and show him his large farm, which mission Mr. Ahles fulfilled, and on their return the party stopped at a saloon, near where Lentzinger's bakery now stands, and all with the exception of Mr. Lincoln took a glass of beer, he remarking that he "would take a drink if he felt like it." In Basil, Switzerland, is the seat of the largest German and Swiss institution for missionary purposes. In 1857, they sent out two missionaries and four colonists among the Crow and Blackfeet Indians that were roaming about the Black Hills. They stayed among them two years, when, through the influence of Canadian missionaries, their huts were burned and four killed, the remaining two returning to Council Bluffs. These latter were very positive of the existence of gold in the Black Hills, which fact our subject published in the Allentown Weltburger, and also in Frank Leslie's Illustrated, this being the first knowledge of gold existing in the Black Hills. Our subject claims to be the first man to correspond in German with the Eastern press from Colorado, Utah and Nevada. The Germans of Council Bluffs celebrated the one hundredth anniversary ofthe birth of the poet Schiller, and soon after our subject recevied a letter from the daughter of the poet, thanking them for the honor shown her father's memory. Mr. Ahles enlisted in the Fifth Iowa Cavalry, but was rejected on account of physical disabilities. He has built many small houses for poor tenants, many of whom are to-day thanking him for their homes. Mr. Ahles' shop is situated on South Main street, where he does general blacksmithing and wagon work. He has twice been a member of the Democratic State Convention, and once a member of the National Convention of the Democratic party.