William Zeckendorf
From left to right: William Zeckendorf, 1875, Louis Zeckendorf, 1884, William and Julia Zeckendorf and their children, the L. Zeckendorf & Company Store, 1887
William Zeckendorf was a pioneer merchant during the early territorial days who helped establish a business empire in the Southwest.
Born in 1842 in Hemmendorf, a small locality in the German region of Baden-Württemberg, William was the third of the Zeckendorf brothers, along with Aaron and Louis, to move to America to pursue fortune. At the age of fourteen he left his native Germany to join his brothers in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where they had moved years earlier in order to learn the art of merchandising from their cousins the Spiegelbergs. By the time that William joined them in 1857, their burgeoning business, A. & L. Zeckendorf Company, had become successful in selling general merchandise as well as supplying provisions for the army. For the better part of his thirteen years in New Mexico, mainly in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, William learned the ropes of the family business and became fluent in Spanish and English, which he added to the three other languages he already spoke: German, French, and Hebrew. During the Civil War, Zeckendorf fought for the Union Army in the First New Mexican Regiment and ascended to the rank of lieutenant, after participating in battles at Socorro, Valverde, and Glorieta Pass.
The Civil War greatly disrupted business for the Zeckendorfs. Financial aid from the Spiegelbergs and undertaking government mail contracts allowed them to stay afloat, and in the late 1860s the family was able to expand their enterprise. The route of one of their mail contracts was between Prescott and Tubac, which brought Southern Arizona to the forefront of the brothers’ attention. Aaron took to exploring the territory, and in the fall of 1866 he transported a train of goods from his Albuquerque store to Tucson, where he sold virtually all of his merchandise. This was enough to convince the brothers to open a branch of their store in Tucson. Likely opened in 1866, the store was first managed by pioneering Jew Philip Drachman. In 1868, he left Arizona for New York, where he married Rosa Katzenstein, a cousin of the Zeckendorfs. After Philip returned to Tucson with Rosa in November of 1868, he went on to pursue his own business ventures, leaving the management of the Zeckendorf store vacant. Louis, who was working as a buyer for the company in New York, and Aaron, who was the firm’s senior representative in Albuquerque, were unable to abandon their own roles. As such, William was designated as the new manager of the A & L Zeckendorf store in Tucson, where he arrived in February 1869 with a huge train of goods.
William initially showed skill in managing the Tucson store, which sold American and foreign goods, bought and resold local agricultural products, and was engaged in freighting and army contracts. He would even go as far as to travel between Tucson and Albuquerque to ensure the safe delivery of huge wagon trains of merchandise directly to his store, which was located on Main and Pennington. However, starting roughly around 1870, Zeckendorf’s diligence started to fail. It can be said that he had a colorful, larger-than-life character, which manifested both charming and deplorable sides. He became a local celebrity for lavishing ostentatious spectacles on the Old Pueblo, including his frequent, cherished firework displays, which would often block traffic, and with which he once even set off fireworks to celebrate Christmas in 1870. Zeckendorf would even dress up as Santa Claus during the Christmas season to regale Tucson’s children. A man of the community, he would help organize public dances, parties, and parades, including the Fiesta de San Agustin. He also fixed Tucson’s first lantern to the facade of his store, which purportedly burned so bright that he would have to turn it off by 10:00 PM so that all of the town’s chickens could go to sleep.
William essentially integrated into the culture of the Wild West. He quickly learned how to handle a six-shooter and he took to frequenting the Wedge and Maiden Lane, Tucson’s red light district, with Lionel and Barron Jacobs, two other pioneering Jews who were seduced by its charms. He put his newly acquired gunfighting skills to the test on September 4, 1869, when he frightened several burglars away from his store by shooting at them. Two more gruesome acts mark William Zeckendorf’s life in Tucson as well: in April 1871, he scalped a Native American man after he and ten other men chased down a band of cattle rustlers - he then kept the scalp as a souvenir. Zeckendorf was also involved in inciting a crowd to call for the expedited lynching of four men who had robbed and murdered the Hernandezes, a well-known, well-liked couple. This took place on August 8, 1873, and constituted the first ever lynching in Tucson’s history.
Zeckendorf’s many feats won him the nicknames “Irrepressible Z” and more blandly, “Mr. Z.” But his exploits did more than just gain him fame and notoriety in Tucson, they also seriously impacted his family’s business. By 1870, the store had more than $100,000 worth of stock and was one of the most important businesses in Tucson, but William was more interested in the debauchery to be found at the Wedge than in managing the store. He went as far as to hire a Jewish couple, Theodore and Julia Welisch, to take care of the store for him. This started a three-year trend in which Aaron and Louis would periodically come to Tucson to check on the store, find it piteously mismanaged and lacking in sales, and find their brother in a debauched state. The situation for William and the Tucson store became even more dire after his brother Aaron died in 1872, which prompted Louis to bring in his seventeen-year-old nephew Albert Steinfeld to the Tucson store. The branch was almost sold off, but with the combined efforts of Louis, Theodore, and Albert, sales started to improve enough to merit keeping the store. For years the store went through different name changes and purely nominal mergers, and Welisch, unable to handle work with William, left on November 21, 1873.
William’s behavior only started to change in 1875, for it was in that year that he set off to New York to finally get married. On October 25, 1875, he married Julia Frank, who was originally from New York. One anecdote recounts how, when the newlywed couple was in San Diego, about to depart for Tucson, William gave Julia a preliminary taste of the Wild West by exiting their hotel dressed as a bandit complete with bandoliers of ammunition, pistols, and a shotgun. William returned to Tucson a married man, aged thirty three and soon to be a father, and it was only around this time that he started to take responsibility for the Zeckendorf store. His newfound focus only benefited his family’s firm, which had become Zeckendorf Brothers, for three years, when in 1878, he entered into partnership with Zadoc Staab, a distant cousin and wealthy New Mexico merchant. This new general merchandise store, Zeckendorf and Staab, opened next door to L. Zeckendorf & Company, which was still being managed by Albert Steinfeld. The store only lasted two years as Staab and Zeckendorf could not agree on how to manage it. For the next decade, William attempted to open a few more stores but was hampered by bad credit and unfortunate fires.
While still in Tucson, he dabbled in mining, cattle raising, and farming, and supposedly was one of, if not the first, to attempt to grow potato crops in Pima County. In 1891 Zeckendorf sold his remaining stock, but was able to keep his store in the family, as he sold it to his nephew Steinfeld. During his time in Arizona, Zeckendorf did show a certain commitment to public service. He was involved in the Eighth Territorial Legislature, held the position of chairman of the Pima County Democratic Committee, and advocated for the installation of railroads and wagon routes in Tucson, so as to connect the town to the rest of southern Arizona.
Wanting to reunite with his family, William Zeckendorf left Tucson in 1891 and lived in Far Rockaway, New York until he passed away in 1906. He left behind an important legacy in Tucson as well as considerable wealth for his family. His brother Louis would go on to live until the age of ninety five, dying in 1932 in New York as well.
Cholent and Chorizo, by Abraham Chanin
Jewish Settlers in the Arizona Territory, by Blaine Lamb
Pioneering Jews: A New Life in the Southwest, by Harriet and Fred Rochlin
Photo credits: Bloom Southwest Jewish Archives