The wise system of industrial economics which has been brought to bear in the development of Nampa has challenged uniform admiration, for while there has been steady advancement in material lines there has been an entire absence of that inflation of values and that erratic “booming” which have in the past proved the eventual death knell to many of the localities in the west, where “mushroom towns” have one day smiled forth with “all modern improvements” and practically on the next have been shorn of their glories and of their possibilities of stable prosperity until the existing order of things shall have been radically changed. In Nampa, progress has been made continuously and in safe lines, and in the healthful growth and advancement of the city Dr. Kohler has taken an active part. Hardly had the town a beginning when he located here, becoming its pioneer druggist and physician. Here he has since carried on business, and while in professional lines he has achieved individual success, he has also labored for the growth and development of the place in which he resides.
The Doctor is a native of Pennsylvania, his birth having occurred in Lewistown, December 18, 1838. He is of German lineage, and three generations of the family had previously resided in the city of his nativity. His parents were Henry and Mary (Livermore) Kohler, the former for many years a successful merchant of Pennsylvania, where he remained until called to the home beyond, at the age of eighty years. His wife was a representative of an old Virginian family, and lived to be seventy-five years of age. They had eight children, of whom the Doctor was the youngest. He was educated at Dartmouth and Swarthmore Colleges, was graduated in 1860, and on the breaking out of the civil war became surgeon of the Twenty-first Pennsylvania Cavalry, under General Sheridan. He remained at the front, alleviating the suffering of the wounded, throughout the war, and was present at the surrender of General Lee, which was the climax of the great tragedy which had engaged the attention of the nation through four long years.
When hostilities had ceased the Doctor returned to Lewistown, Pennsylvania, where he practiced his profession for five years, when he removed to Vevay, Indiana, making his home there for ten years. In 1882 he went to Denver, but during his year’s residence there he found that the altitude was too high for him, and he removed to Morgan, Utah, where he remained until 1887, when he came to the new town of Nampa. Here he has resided continuously since, and in his drug store and in the practice of medicine he has received a liberal patronage. He has always been a close student of his profession, and his skill and ability have made him very successful.
Soon after the war, Dr. Kohler was united in marriage to Miss Sallie Carson, who died four years later, leaving two sons, William Henry and B. Rush, both practicing physicians. The Doctor has never married again. He is a Democrat of the old school, and keeps well informed on the issues of the day, although he does not aspire to official preferment. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and among those who wore the blue, as well as his associates in business and social life, is held in high esteem.