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Founder of the Zurbuch-Baker Coal Company; Fifth Ward councilman
On the record
Joseph F. Zurbuch served an apprenticeship to the blacksmith’s trade at New Haven and worked at that trade in Fort Wayne from 1882 until 1905, when he founded a wholesale and retail coal business at 813 Taylor Street with William A. Rinehart as his associate. The alliance continued until July 1910, when Zurbuch purchased his partner’s interest; he conducted the enterprise alone until 1 August 1914, when he admitted Joseph J. Baker to partnership and the firm took the name Zurbuch-Baker Coal Company. In 1898 he was elected to the Fort Wayne city council from the Fifth Ward and served five years in that office. He married Christina Rinehart on 18 November 1884.
Sources: Griswold, Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, vol. II (1917), Zurbuch sketch, read first-hand. No second source reached for this profile.