Isadore Elkan Solomon and Anna Freudenthal-Solomon
From left to right: Isadore Elkan Solomon, 1904, Anna Freudenthal-Solomon, 1890, I.E. Solomon’s store in Solomonville, advertisement for Solomon’s store, Solomon Hotel, 1906, the Solomon-Weinberger wedding, Isadore and Anna Solomon seated in center, June 1907
Isadore Elkan (I. E.) Solomon and Anna Freudenthal-Solomon were a pioneering Jewish couple who did much to develop the Gila River Valley.
Isadore and Anna were born in 1841 and 1843 respectively in Posen, a former province of the Kingdom of Prussia (currently located in central Poland). In 1858, seventeen year-old Solomon traveled all the way to Towanda, Pennsylvania to work with an uncle who had a livery business. After thirteen years of labor with his uncle Isadore found that he had saved enough money to go back to Europe to find a wife, and in 1871 he returned to his hometown of Kruschwitz. One day he went to a local store, where he met a young woman who was watching the shop for her father; the two quickly discovered that not only did they both have family in the New World, but that they also had a mutual interest in one another. The woman was Anna Freudenthal, and two months after this chance encounter, she and I.E. Solomon married in Inowrocław, Poland, in 1872. The very next day, they left for America.
I.E. and Anna moved to Towanda, where Solomon again started to work in the livery business. Over the next four years, a family grew, with the births of their children Charles, Eva, and Rose. Although Solomon’s business in Towanda was viable at first, the Panic of 1873 had caused an economic depression. The family started to contemplate new possibilities and ultimately found one in 1876, when Anna’s brother Phoebus coaxed them all the way to New Mexico. Anna’s family, including her cousins the Lesinskys, had already lived in the region for almost two decades. The family traveled as far as La Junta, Colorado by rail, but the second leg of their journey to Las Cruces was done the old-fashioned way, by stagecoach. This long haul took the family a total of six days and six nights.
After arriving in Las Cruces, Isadore quickly found that there was not sufficient work in the town to support his family, so he struck out even further West in search of opportunity. Solomon’s search brought him to the Arizona Territory, where he found good fortune in Clifton, a town near the New Mexico border. There, he began to work with Henry Lesinsky, one of Anna’s cousins, who offered him work in mines that he owned. For three weeks I.E. toiled in the mines, working ten hours a day for a daily wage of four dollars. He quickly understood that the mines’ production was hampered by lack of a heat source which could reach high enough temperatures to smelt the ore. Solomon recognized a great opportunity and took up a contract with the Lesinskys to supply their mines around Clifton with mesquite charcoal - which he planned to source from the banks of the Gila River - that could reach temperatures high enough to do the job.. Isadore began producing charcoal from a thick mesquite copse on the river nearby Pueblo Viejo. This small village was inhabited mainly by Mexican families, and Isadore rented out a store as well.
Three months later, in 1876, Anna and the children reunited with Isadore. Anna was forced to make do with taking care of her family in rough, unfamiliar conditions. The dilapidated, unfurnished adobe building in which they lived also served as the family store, which I.E. had purchased, while cooking and washing were done outdoors, all of this being in a sparsely populated region of Arizona. On April 10, 1878, Pueblo Viejo was renamed Solomonville, though the Solomons’ hardships continued to ebb and flow. In 1879 two more twins were born and in 1884 yet another daughter was born, and at one point Anna caught a fever which persisted for two years. During all of this time, she continued to look after her family and manage the store while Isadore was engaged in producing charcoal.
The industriousness with which the Solomon family worked spread into other domains as well. As Isadore’s charcoal production caused deforestation in the Gila River Valley, he began to develop agriculture and irrigation in the region and eventually owned close to 1,300 acres in the valley. He was joined by his brother Adolph and his associate, David Wickersham, a Quaker man, in these and other ventures, including government contracting and raising livestock. Around 1880, by which point the Solomon home and store had been enlarged to include a second floor, the family opened up the Solomon Hotel in the same building. Essentially Anna’s own business, the hotel gained a widespread reputation for the hospitality, outstanding food, and cultural refinement that she offered to her guests, who did not even receive individual room keys. In 1883, Solomonville became the seat of Graham County, and I.E. Solomon was later named country treasurer. In 1899, Solomon and thirteen other investors, including his son Charles and his friend Wickersham, incorporated the Gila Valley Bank. Isadore had already been giving small loans to local farmers, and several of his business associates convinced him that founding a bank would bring more economic stability to the region.
The Solomon family ended up counting six children - Charles, Eva, Rosa, Harry, Lillie, and Blanche - three of whom entered into the annals of Southwest Jewish history. In 1896, Eva and Rose married Julius Wetzler and David Goldberg, respectively, in a double wedding ceremony in El Paso, in which Samuel Drachman served as the officiant. Charles married Hattie Ferrin, a member of the very first graduating class of the University of Arizona and the sister of Clara Ferrin-Bloom; they moved to Tucson in 1913. The story of the Solomons in Solomonville started to come to a close in 1919 when the family sold their properties. Anna had already moved to Los Angeles, and Isadore only joined her later, when he was 75; the only thing that prevented him from continuing to herd cattle into his old age was a serious goring incident. Isadore died December 4, 1930 at the age of 89, and Anna passed away May 4, 1933 also at 89. On December 14, 1950, Solomonville was renamed Solomon.
Cholent and Chorizo, by Abraham Chanin
Jewish Settlers in the Arizona Territory, by Blaine Lamb
Pioneer Jews: A New Life in the Southwest, by Harriet and Fred Rochlin
Southwest Jewish Archives
Photo credits: Bloom Southwest Jewish Archives