Multnomah County OR Archives Biographies.....Lepper, Loren Mont February 22, 1870 - 
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Ila Wakley iwakley@msn.com January 23, 2011, 3:01 pm

Source: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. III, Published 1928, Pages 753 - 754
Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

     LOREN MONT LEPPER, a Portland attorney, was born on a farm in Wells 
county, Indiana, about nine miles southeast of Fort Wayne, February 22, 1870. 
His parents were James E. and Martha A. (Quackenbush) Lepper, who, removing 
westward, settled in Portland and now make their home with their son. L. M. 
Lepper attended the Ossian, Indiana, public schools and was graduated from the 
high school at Kendallville, Indiana, winning a gold medal for attendance, 
scholarship and deportment. He next became a student in the normal school at 
Albion, Indiana, where he prepared for the profession of teaching, and when 
seventeen years of age he secured a position as timekeeper on the Lake Shore & 
Michigan Railroad, now the Air Line of the New York Central. That he proved 
efficient and capable is indicated in the fact that after a year he was given 
charge of a gang of eighty men who were working at making this a double-track 
system. From assistant roadmaster on the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern he was 
promoted to roadmaster on the Ohio Central Railway from Toledo to Columbus, 
Ohio. At the time the road was merged by the J. Pierpont Morgan interests with 
the Hocking Valley Coal Road, through the consolidation and lengthening of 
divisions Mr. Lepper lost his job and, starting out to seek another, became 
assistant supervisor of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad. Soon afterward, 
however, he became extra gang foreman on the Great Northern Railroad, serving 
on the Duluth division under General Roadmaster J. M. Hurley. Recognition of 
his loyalty to the interests of the company led to his promotion. He was made 
roadmaster of the Minneapolis division, thence went to the Cass Lake division 
and afterward to the Iron Ore division at Hibbing, Minnesota, as roadmaster. 
He afterward occupied a responsible position as superintendent with a 
contracting company, removing dirt from the iron ore, and when he had served 
in that capacity for a year he returned to his old home in Indiana. In 1902 he 
was appointed roadmaster of the Chicago division of the Chicago, Rock Island & 
Pacific Railroad and occupied that position for two years, at the end of which 
time he went to the Panama Canal Zone as superintendent of construction, 
remaining in canal work for about a year, during which time he was located at 
various points — Culebra, Empire, Las Cascadas and Bas Obispo. In the meantime 
he had read law and taken a correspondence course in law and in 1899 he was 
admitted to the Indiana bar, although he did not begin practice at that 
period. After his experience in the Canal Zone he determined to more 
thoroughly prepare for legal work and entered the law school of the University 
of Michigan, from which he was graduated in 1908, having done three years of 
work in two and one-half years. It was then that he came to the Pacific coast 
to look over the country, visiting Seattle, Tacoma, San Francisco, Los 
Angeles, Portland and other cities, but did not find conditions right for law 
practice, as he believed, at that time. He then went to Everett, Washington, 
and engaged on construction work for the Great Northern Railroad. Subsequently 
he was made roadmaster at Whitefish, Montana, where he continued for two 
years. In 1909 he had the misfortune to break his leg and returned to Indiana. 
In the spring of 1910 he resigned a position determined to devote his 
attention to law practice, and after again visiting various coast cities 
decided to make his home in Portland. Here he entered into association with an 
old friend and classmate, Charles C. Hall, on the 1st of September, 1910, and 
they have since remained in practice together.

     Mr. Lepper is a loyal exemplar of Masonic teachings, has taken the 
degrees of both York and Scottish rites and is a member of the Mystic Shrine. 
He also belongs to the Woodmen of the World and he is a member of the 
Multnomah County Bar Association and the Oregon State Bar Association. He has 
been extremely active in improvement work, especially on the east side of 
Portland, and was made secretary-treasurer of the East Side Business Men's 
Club. His cooperation is always counted upon to further any project for the 
public good and he has been instrumental in promoting various movements which 
have directly benefited the city. His life has been filled with many and 
varied incidents and not a few thrilling experiences which came to him in 
connection with railroad construction work when he directed gangs of workmen 
from almost every country on the face of the globe. He learned to handle men 
and situations, and these qualities have stood him in good stead in his law 
practice, in his development of business enterprises and in his work as a 
member and officer of the East Side Business Men's Club.

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