Chatham County GaArchives Biographies.....Myers, Sigo 1850 - living in 1913
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 15, 2004, 12:43 pm

Author: William Harden
p. 708-710

   COL. SIGO MYERS. The name of Myers has figured with gratifying prominence in
the life of Savannah for more than half a century as bankers, manufacturers,
merchants and citizens of the highest, type. The Myers brothers have ever been
known as men who did things and their imprint is upon many splendid enterprises.
In 1852 the little Bavarian family located within the fair boundaries of the
South and in the ensuing years they have proved the possessors of all those
characteristics which make the typical German so admirable an acquisition to our
nation, and the support of our institutions. Sturdy integrity, indomitable
perseverance, high intelligence and much business sagacity have been represented
in them, and no more honored subjects could be represented in a work of this
character.

   Col. Sigo Myers, president of the National Bank of Savannah, succeeded to
this position upon the death of his brother, the late Herman Myers, who from its
founding until his decease on March 24, 1909, held that position. Herman Myers,
who was the elder brother, was born in Bavaria, Germany, in 1847, the son of
Sigmund and Fanny Myers, who in 1852, joined the numerous Teutonic company in
quest of American independence and opportunity, and with their family crossed
the Atlantic and shortly after arriving on our shores, located at Warm Springs,
Bath county, Virginia, where their children were reared. There young Herman
received his public school education, and, the family being in modest
circumstances, he learned, like the usual German lad, a trade, his being that of
a tanner. His father died in 1861 and the family removed to Lynchburg. In 1867,
Herman Myers came to Savannah, which city remained his home until his death, his
active and busy life attaining for him a position of relative distinction in the
community with which his interests were allied. After coming here he became
engaged in the cigar and tobacco business; and subsequently became a large
handler and exporter of wool, under the firm name of H. Myers & Brother. He
continued his interest in the cigar business, however, and in association with
his brother, Sigo Myers, became an extensive manufacturer of cigars. He acquired
the controlling interest in El Modelo Cigar Manufacturing Company, of which he
was president and which maintained a large cigar factory at Tampa, Florida. He
organized the Cuban American Cigar Manufacturing Company, into which El Modelo
Company was merged and which maintained an office and factory at Havana, as well
as in Tampa. This became one of the largest cigar manufacturing industries of
the country. A few years before his death he disposed of his interests in the
cigar manufacturing business and thereafter centered most of his activities in
the banking business in Savannah.

   He was the principal organizer and from its founding until the time of his
decease was the president of the National Bank of Savannah, which began business
in 1885. He promoted the erection of the National Bank building, the home of his
bank, a splendid office building of handsome design, ten stories in height,
standing at the corner of Bull and Broughton streets, the heart of the business
section and one of the show places of the city. The capital stock of the bank is
$250,000, while its surplus and undivided profits amount to nearly double that
sum. It is one of the strongest financial institutions in the South and numbers
among its board of directors a list of citizens whose business reputation and
financial resources rank among the highest in Savannah. The bank has always been
well managed to the extent that it gives the best of satisfaction in profits to
its stockholders combined with the best of accommodations to its customers.

   Herman Myers was one of the organizers and for years was president of the
Savannah Grocery Company, wholesale. He was also the president of the Oglethorpe
Savings & Trust Company, an auxiliary of the National Bank, organized to handle
its large savings department. He was one of the organizers and promoters of the
construction of the Southbound Railway Company, of which he was the
vice-president until the time of its disposal to the Seaboard Air Line Railway
Company. He was also largely interested in the old Savannah & Tybee Railroad and
the Tybee Hotel Company. In addition to his Savannah interests he was a member
of the syndicate which purchased the Macon Street Railway & Lighting System, and
was president of the reorganized company.

   In 1885, Herman Myers was elected a member of the board of aldermen of
Savannah. He was continuously a member of the city council for ten years,
serving on the finance committee during the entire period. For five years he was
a member of the sanitary board. These duties equipped him well for the position
of mayor, to which he was called by election of the people in 1895. He served
out the term of two years, and then, after an interval of two years, he was
again in 1899 elected mayor. He was re-elected in 1901, 1903, and 1905, the last
three terms quite without opposition. His administration during those years was
marked by the greatest permanent public improvements in the history of Savannah,
including street paving, enlargement of the water works plant, street openings,
and, the greatest achievement of them all, the building of the present city
hall, one of the finest municipal buildings in the South. In Masonry he had
taken the Scottish Rite degree. His life was in every way an honor to himself
and to his home city, Savannah.

Although he has given "his honors to the world again, his blessed part to
heaven," his benignant influence will not soon be lost in the city which was so
much the better for his having lived in it.

   Col. Sigo Myers, brother of the foregoing, was born in Bavaria in 1850, and
was about two years old when his parents came to America. His boyhood history
was nearly identical with that of his brother in rearing and education. Like
Herman Myers he is entirely a self-made man, rising to his present position of
wealth and influence in the financial world from the ranks. The Myers hoys lost
their father in early childhood, and, without any inheritance or financial
assistance of any kind, found it necessary to begin earning their livelihood at
an early age.

   Sigo Myers came to Savannah in 1868, one year after his brother. For several
years he was actively associated with his brother in the cigar manufacturing
business and became president of El Modelo and the Cuban American Cigar
Manufacturing Company, mentioned in a preceding paragraph. These interests took
him away from Savannah for some years, during which he resided in Florida. As a
capitalist, he took a prominent part in the building up of Jacksonville, in
which city, as well as in Tampa, he still holds large and important property
interests. Previous to his brother's death he was vice-president of the National
Bank of Savannah and upon his brother's death he became president of the
institution, and through his wise, skillful and experienced management the bank
has continued to nourish as it has from the beginning. He also succeeded his
brother as president of the Oglethorpe Savings & Trust Company. In addition to
those in Savannah and Jacksonville, he also has important financial interests in
Macon and Columbus, Georgia. He is vice-president of the Muscogee Real Estate &
Improvement Company of Columbus and is vice-president of the Macon Railway &
Light Company. He is a director of the Glen Springs Company, Spartanburg, South
Carolina, also a director of the Gainesville & Midland Railway. Mr. Myers has
taken a very active part in the founding of the Jewish Educational Alliance, a
non-sectarian institution, and to which he donated the building. He stands high
in Masonry, being a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a Shriner, and
is president of the Masonic Temple Association. Under his administration, and
the present trustees, ground for the temple was broken.

   Colonel Myers has always taken an active interest in the famous military
organizations of Savannah; he is one of the board of directors of • the Savannah
Volunteer Guards; he was a member of the Georgia Hussars for several years. Upon
the election of Joe M. Brown as governor in 1909 he was appointed lieutenant
colonel upon the governor's staff and served as such until the expiration of
Governor Brown's term in June, 1911.

   Colonel Myers takes an active interest not only in local affairs, but in
matters generally of national and world-wide interest. He is known particularly
as an ardent sympathizer with and prominent advocate of world-wide peace. On
this subject he made a notable address on July 4, 1911, before the annual
convention of the Witham Bankers' Association, at Warm Springs, Georgia, and a
month or two later, while sojourning at Carlsbad, in.Bavaria, he wrote a public
letter on the subject of world-wide peace which received prominent space in the
Paris edition of the New York Herald. Colonel Myers has an intimate knowledge,
not only of national, but also of world politics, and, speaking not only as a
citizen, but as a representative of the great banking interests which always are
called upon to finance wars, his views on this important subject, and his
enthusiastic advocacy of disarmament and of world-wide peace, receive the most
respectful attention.

In July, 1911, he married Mrs. Nellie Simmonds, of New York.


Additional Comments:
A HISTORY OF SAVANNAH AND SOUTH GEORGIA
BY
WILLIAM HARDEN

VOLUME II
ILLUSTRATED
THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK
1913

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