Will County IL Archives Biographies.....Lentz, David H 
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Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com November 9, 2007, 11:54 pm

Author: Genealogical and Biographical Record of Will County

DAVID H. LENTZ, general manager of the McKenna steel plant in Joliet, and 
consulting engineer of the Sellard Manufacturing Company of Chicago, was born 
in Pittsburg, Pa., December 13, 1847, a son of John and Caroline (Will) Lentz. 
His father, who was a native of Alsace, France, was brought to America in 1824 
by his father, John Lentz, Sr., and grew to manhood in Pittsburg, Pa. He 
became a pioneer in the manufacture of glass and for many years carried on 
business at Wheeling, W. Va. While visiting in the west in 1880 he was killed 
at Ottawa, Ill., in an accident on the Rock Island Railroad. The subject of 
this sketch was fifth among eight children. He had few educational advantages, 
this being caused by his father's failure in business through the endorsement 
of notes for others. When he was thirteen his mother died and soon afterward 
he started out for himself. He learned the trade of a machinist in Pittsburg 
and afterward acquired a knowledge of roll turning. He also took up the study 
of drawing, of which he made such a success that he has designed and drawn 
plans for a number of plants. Through his energy and industry he was promoted 
to be foreman in charge of the rolling mill machinery, a position that he held 
for eleven years. In 1878 he went to Indianapolis, Ind., where he took charge 
of the roll turning for the Indianapolis Rolling Mill Company. After two years 
with the company he was appointed designer and constructor of the new steel 
rail mill erected by the firm. All of the drawings for this mill were made by 
him. In 1882 Mr. Lentz went to Troy, N. Y., and took charge of the Albany iron 
works department of the Albany & Rensselaer Iron Company, where he had charge 
of more than twelve hundred men. His successful management of his department 
proved that he was fitted for large responsibilities. In 1890 he went to 
Roanoke, Va., and there designed and constructed a mill for the manufacture of 
bar iron, which proved a remarkably successful enterprise. Coming to Chicago 
in April, 1895, he took charge of the Sellard Manufacturing Company's plant as 
superintendent, in connection with the position as consulting engineer of the 
Rail Renewing Company. In the latter business experiments are being made on 
the process, and he has been connected with it continuously from its 
inception. In April 1897, he was made general manager and came to Joliet for 
the purpose of erecting a plant in this city. Mr. McKenna is the inventor of 
the process and with Mr. Lentz; the inventor of the machinery. Mr. Lentz has 
secured seven patents on the machinery in operation here. The plant covers 
seven acres and has a capacity of about four hundred tons per day. By this 
process old rails that have served their term of usefulness are renovated; the 
rails are put through a process that restores them to their proper shape and 
toughens them, so that, while only five per cent is lost in weight, their 
former period of usefulness, ten or twelve years, is fully renewed. Nor is 
this a process that can be carried on but once. It can be repeated with the 
same rails again and again, and has the advantage of being insignificant in 
cost, in comparison with new rails. The plant has been in constant use since 
1894, but is still in the best of condition. In it have been treated thirty-
seven thousand tons for the Santa Fe and twenty-three thousand for the 
Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. In 1898 the company erected another 
plant in Kansas City, a duplicate of the plant in Joliet. Both are under the 
supervision of Mr. Lentz, who is also a stock-holder in the company. 

During the Civil war Mr. Lentz, together with his father and three brothers, 
served in the Union army. He enlisted in Company F, First Battalion, 
Pennsylvania Cavalry, with which he served in Pennsylvania and Virginia until 
the close of the war. He took part in the raid after Morgan, and during the 
battle of Gettysburg was a dispatch bearer. He is a member of Post No. 48, G. 
A. R., at Roanoke, Va. Fraternally he is a Knight Templar in the Masonic 
Order. In religion he is a Presbyterian. In Fayette County, Pa., in 1865, he 
married Miss Mary C. McCormick, who died in Troy, N. Y., in 1887. Four years 
later he was married, in Roanoke, Va., to Miss Ella Race, of Binghamton, N. Y. 
Of his first marriage four children were born: Ada, deceased; Noble Edwin, who 
was superintendent of the Sellard Manufacturing Company at the time of his 
death, February 8, 1899; Julia May, deceased; and Homer Allen, who is foreman 
in the finishing department of the Joliet works. The only child of the second 
marriage is Emily C.

Additional Comments:
Genealogical and Biographical Record of Will County Illinois Containing 
Biographies of Well Known Citizens of the Past and Present, Biographical 
Publishing Company, Chicago, 1900

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