Idaho owes much to her sturdy German and German-American population, whose thrift and industry have made success in every field of endeavor. Prominent among the businessmen of Genesee is Charles Bomberg, raiser and buyer of cattle and a butcher and dealer in meat. Mr. Bomberg is of German parentage. He was born in Huron County, Michigan, May 25, 1862. His father, also named Charles, was born in Germany and came to America with his parents in his childhood. He grew to manhood and established himself in Michigan, and there married Miss Kate Weaver, a native of Huron County, and also of German ancestry. They reared to usefulness and honor a family of nine children, and are living out their declining years at their old home in Michigan, happy and respected. They are members of the Lutheran church.
Mr. Bomberg was reared on his father’s farm and did his part of the work after he was old enough and as long as he remained at home. He gained a practical education in the public schools and had some business experience before he left Michigan. In 1884 he went to Dakota, and from Dakota he went to Washington, from Washington he came to Idaho, in 1888, accompanied by his present partner, and the two opened a modest meat market to cater the trade of the then infant town of Genesee. The growth of the town was no more rapid than the growth of their enterprise, which has always kept pace with every new demand upon it. As at first Mr. Bomberg’s concern has the entire trade of the city. Mr. Bomberg and his partner own five hundred and fifty-two acres of land adjacent to Genesee, on which they raise as much of the stock they kill as is possible. But the supply thus obtained is small in proportion to their needs, and they have established a market for cattle which brings to Genesee a large part of the stock raised in the city’s tributary territory. They have erected fine residences and other necessary buildings on the land mentioned, and have put up a large market building, which is as well adapted to the purposes for which it was planned as any similar establishment in the state.
Mr. Bomberg is a Knight of Pythias and was made a Master Mason in Unity Lodge, No. 32, of Genesee, and of this he is treasurer. In politics he is a Republican, but he is too busy and too little inclined to public affairs to give much more time to political matters than is necessary to meet the responsibilities of citizenship. He is popular in business circles, a successful man who counts his friends by the hundred, and is generously helpful to all public interests. He is, as yet, a single man, and it is not impossible that there is a very interesting phase of his life yet to be entered upon and yet to be written of.