John B. Furstenberg is the president and treasurer of the Boggs Broom Corn Company and his efforts have been an important factor in making St. Louis the center of the broom corn trade of the world. He is at all times actuated by a most progressive spirit and his initiative and energy have enabled him to formulate new plans that have led to the continued growth and development of the business. He is possessed of the spirit of western enterprise and progress and is by birth, training and preference a western man, for he was born in Sterling, Kansas, July 23, 1888. His father, B. C. Furstenberg, was born in Illinois in 1860 and is now a resident of Wichita, Kansas, where he is engaged in the broom corn business. He married Barbara Rauh, a native of Pennsylvania, who was born in 1858. They were married at Sterling, Kansas, 1n 1886.
In the acquirement of his education John B. Furstenberg attended a convent of Hutchinson, Kansas, and afterward became a student in the Salt City College of Hutchinson, from which he was graduated. He began learning the broom corn business under the direction of his father and in 1910 came to St. Louis, where he established the firm of B, C. Furstenberg & Son and later took over the business of the Boggs Broom Corn Company, of which he became president and treasurer. He still occupies this dual office and is today the head of a firm which controls the largest business of its kind in the world, and St. Louis has become the largest broom corn market on the face of the globe. The company has an extensive plant, splendidly improved with the latest improved machinery for handling its product, and the business is today one of mammoth proportions. Mr. Furstenberg is also the president of the Kalkaska Handle Company of Kalkaska, Michigan, and is an officer of several other companies affiliated with the main line of his business. There is no point of the trade with which he is nor thoroughly familiar and his wise supervision has been manifest in the continued growth and the success of the undertaking.
Mr. Furstenberg was married in St. Louis in December, 1914, to Miss Lucie C. Bain, a daughter of Robert E. M. and Mary (Vallee) Bain, representatives of one of the oldest families of the city. Mr. and Mrs. Furstenberg have three children: Barbara, Lucie Ann and J. B.
Mr. Furstenberg belongs to the Chamber of Commerce and Is interested in all that has to do with the welfare and progress of St. Louis. He is also connected with the Sunset Hill Country Club and the Missouri Athletic Association. His political allegiance is given to the republican party.