John L. W. Zietlow Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1752-1754 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	An engraving and the signature of J. L. W. Zietlow faces page 1752.


	JOHN L. W. ZIETLOW, who is president of the Dakota Central 
Telephone Company, with headquarters in the city of Aberdeen, is a 
native of Prussia, where he was born on the 8th of December, 1850, and 
where he was reared to the age of seventeen years, having received his 
education in the excellent national schools of his native land. In 1867 
he immigrated to the United States, having previously learned the 
watchmaker's trade in Prussia. He made his way to Wisconsin, and there 
sought such employment as came to his notice. He worked on a farm a time 
and later was employed in a machine shop and in sawmills. In 1873, while 
working in a sawmill, he had the misfortune to meet with an accident of 
most deplorable nature, having his right arm severed above the elbow. By 
the time he had recovered from his injury, so far as may be, he found 
himself almost penniless, but the same courage and self-reliance which 
have brought to him success in later years stood him well in hand at 
that critical period. He went to Naperville, Illinois, and there 
succeeded in completing a course in a commercial college. Thereafter he 
secured a position as scaler in a sawmill, while later he secured 
clerical work in an office in Stillwater, Minnesota. In March, 1880, Mr. 
Zietlow came to what is now the state of South Dakota, and took up a 
homestead claim in Spink county, where he turned his attention to 
farming and the implement business, but his crops failed six years in 
succession, a fact which led him eventually to identify himself with the 
telephone business. Being a superior mechanic and having made particular 
study of applied electricity, he has been able to direct his efforts 
with consummate ability and success.

	It may be said that while residing in Minnesota the subject had 
read a glowing description of the attractions of the James river valley 
in South Dakota, and later he was visited by a man who purposed bringing 
a colony to this section. A church meeting was held and this promoter 
prefaced his exhortations by a long prayer, after which he expatiated on 
his plans and on the great future in store for the section in which he 
was interested. Mr. Zietlow determined to investigate matters for 
himself, and, in company with a friend, he came to Watertown, then the 
terminus of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, and thence, in the 
teeth of a fierce blizzard, made his way to the promoter's vaunted city 
of Ashton, which he found to be comprised of one shanty and a sod house. 
He took up a homestead claim, which proved to be near Athol, and then 
returned to Minnesota. On account of being caught in a blizzard in the 
fall of 1880, while on his way to his claim, he practically decided to 
abandon the property, when an offer of fifty dollars was made him for 
this tree claim adjoining Athol, which was beginning to show signs of 
growth, and which within six months was increased to the amount of 
twenty-three hundred dollars, he decided to once more come and "see what 
was doing." He found fourteen stores and two hotel buildings in the 
course of erection in the town, and that the railroad company had 
designated the same as a station on its line, while town lots were being 
platted beyond his claim. He refused eleven thousand dollars for his 
property and the town continued to boom for two years, within which time 
he platted his land, selling one lot. Other towns grew up as if by 
magic, and in time Athol's fortunes languished and it became practically 
but a memory.

	Within the limitations necessarily prescribed for an article of 
this nature it is impossible to enter into details as to the gradual 
upbuilding of the great telephone enterprises in which the subject of 
this sketch is so prominently concerned, and yet it is but consistent 
that an outline be entered. In October, 1886, the Dakota Emner Telephone 
Company was organized, the promoter having been the subject of this 
sketch, who was one of the seven stockholders and incorporators. This 
company establishes exchanges in Aberdeen, Watertown and Columbia, and 
also connected Aberdeen with Groton and Columbia by long-distance 
telephone during the winter of 1886-87, while the local exchanges in 
Aberdeen and Watertown were later sold to local companies. Within one 
year after the establishment of the business the Bell Company attempted 
to close the exchanges on account of infringements of patents, and, 
fearing litigation, all of the exchanges mentioned were closed with the 
exception of those in Aberdeen and Watertown, to which Mr. Zietlow gave 
his personal attention. He carried on the work against the wishes of the 
Bell Company, though he was simply working on a salary at the time and 
the struggle was a strenuous and bitter one. From 1887 to 1894 it was 
under these adverse conditions the two exchanges mentioned were kept in 
operation by the use of such appliances as Mr. Zietlow could secure by 
personal effort. He familiarized himself with the old Reis apparatus, 
which had been invented only for the reproduction of musical tones, and 
by personal manipulation and improvement he succeeded in making the 
device available for conversational purposes, and during this time he 
discovered and brought out several inventions which have proved to be 
very important to practical telephone service. Before the expiration of 
the Bell patents the other persons interested in the local service had 
become discouraged, and in April, 1896, Mr. Zietlow concluded to 
attempt individually what the company had originally intended to 
accomplish. He constructed the line from Aberdeen to Redfield, and then 
found himself six thousand dollars in debt and with a cash capital of 
but one dollar and a half. The line was constructed through the efforts 
of himself and his son, with the assistance of a kindly disposed friend, 
and the subject's wife and daughters attended to the operation of the 
exchange while he was thus engaged in building the new line. From this 
time forward success has crowned his efforts and justified his 
determination and courage. The line became very popular, particularly 
during the hard winter of 1896, when communication by other means was 
cut off. In the time of the great floods of the following spring, when 
telegraph and railroad service came to a standstill, he kept his line in 
operation to Redfield, fording the streams to make the necessary 
repairs, and on account of no other line of communication being open, it 
paid some days as high as seventy and eighty dollars. After he had 
constructed three hundred miles of line, Mr. Zietlow organized and 
incorporated the Western Dakota Telephone Company and also the Central 
Dakota Telephone Company. The Dakota Central absorbed the Clark 
Telephone and the Midland line, of North Dakota, the Western Dakota and 
Central Dakota Telephone Companies as well as the Aberdeen, Watertown 
and other local exchanges. Mr. Zietlow is still one of the principal 
stockholders and an officer in each of these companies, whose aggregate 
capitalization is five hundred thousand dollars, which fact indicates 
the extent and importance of the service given and the business 
controlled. The Dakota Central Telephone Lines, of which he is 
president, represents one of the most profitable enterprises of the sort 
in existence and still gives its service at minimum rates to patrons. It 
now has a four-thousand-mile circuit, with four hundred offices, fifty 
of which are local exchanges, while seventy-five persons are represented 
on the regular pay roll, besides the construction gangs and agents, the 
latter being on commission basis. In 1903 the company expended one 
hundred and thirty thousand dollars in improvements, and the average 
annual revenue has reached fifty thousand dollars, the estimate for 1904 
being one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It may be said without 
fear of contradiction, that the service accorded to patrons is cheaper 
than that of any other telephone company in the Union doing a legitimate 
business. The net profit on each twenty-five cent message is only four 
and a half cents. The company has no indebtedness and the stock is all 
held by residents of South Dakota.

	In politics, Mr. Zietlow is a Republican, his religious faith is 
that of the Methodist Episcopal church, and fraternally he is identified 
with the Ancient Order of United Workmen, the Knights of the Maccabees 
and the United Commercial Travelers.

	At Newton, Wisconsin, on the 4th of March, 1878, Mr. Zietlow was 
married to Miss Martha Hewitt, who was born in Ohio and reared in 
Wisconsin, and who has proved an able coadjutor to her husband in his 
past struggles and at all times a wise counselor. They have three 
children: J. Forrest, who is superintendent of the system here 
described, having grown up with the business; Essie, who is a graduate 
of the high school and who has been employed in the office of the 
telephone companies since she was ten years of age, and Nina, who aided 
in the work as a child and contributed her quota to the building of the 
great enterprises of which her father is the head; in fact she states 
that as a child she was a "messenger boy." She is a graduate of the 
Aberdeen high school, the Aberdeen Normal School, and is now a student 
of the Chicago Musical College.