“I’ve worked all my life,” said 98-year-old Fred Troppman in an interview in 1970. “I guess that’s my bad habit.”
Fred Troppman was in business in Bemidji for over 70 years, having purchased his store at 3rd in 1900.
Troppman served as mayor of Bemidji from 1950-1956 and served two terms as a member of the City Council. By the time the United States became involved in the First World War, Fred was already pushing 40, but he still served in the Home Guard anyway. His daughter Mrs. Katherine Walters could still remember how he used to march up and down the streets with other members of the Home Guard.
In 1879, Fred rode a cattle boat over to this country from Bavaria. His father went into the lumber business and operated a sawmill in Perham. One day at the mills, Fred’s father’s leg was severed in an accident. Shortly thereafter he contacted blood poisoning and passed away leaving Fred’s mother with her seven children.
Troppman attended school in Perham for two years and made three grades during these two years in recalling. In recalling those two years he said “I was never spelled down once and they could never get me in arithmetic.”
His first job was working for a farmer where he earned 25 cents a day laboring from daylight to dark. He also worked as a tender for a mason and finally got a job as a clerk in a store where he was paid $5 per month. This figure was later raised to $12 a month and then to $20.
“It was a real general merchandise store,” he said. “I learned all about lumber, ties, cordwood, farm machinery, clothing and groceries on that job”
“I’d always wanted to study to be an auditor,” he recalled, “but I also knew that at that time a person could only make $75 a month maximum if I worked for someone else.” With that in mind, he continued to save from his meager salary and when he was 19, he paid $150 down on $500 worth of general merchandise stock to go into business in Perham.
Other merchants in the town gave him only 30 days to remain in business but through hard work, the knowledge of sound business practices learned in a tough apprenticeship, the young merchant made it and was worth $25,000 before he was 25 years old.
“This is when I learned to take a chance and to make that chance pay off,” the veteran merchant recalled. “The more they talked about me, the harder I worked.”
Even before the turn of the century, Troppman knew the value of the so-called “leader” item. In the early days at Perham, he sold “Battle Axe” tobacco below cost to attract people to his store.
It wasn’t long after making a success out of the Perham store that he could see a future in other communities of Minnesota. He picked Fergus Falls as the place to make his next bid and he, with a partner, bought the stock of a store in that city and moved their headquarters there. Troppman bought out 40 stores in Minnesota and North Dakota during his career, but he made most of his money around 1916 when he would buy and sell bankrupt stocks.
His marriage to Carrie Gaustead took place at Fergus Falls in 1899. He had two daughters, Margaret and Katherine.
Troppman moved to Bemidji from Fergus Falls in 1910, ten years after purchasing the Bemidji store at Minnesota Avenue and Third Street. .
Troppman served as mayor of Bemidji in 1936 and 1937, and again from 1951 to 1953 and 1955-1956. He was an alderman from 1947 to 1950 and again in 1953 and 1954 and served for a period of years on the industrial committees of the Chamber of Commerce. Troppman was also in on the action when a group of downtown businessmen got together and extended Irvine Avenue. It was under his administration that the present city-manager-mayor-council system was set up.
Mr. Troppman was known for his generosity. He gave over $100,000 to Bemidji State College to be distributed to needy students in the form of scholarships. Because of his generosity, many needy area students were able to attend college. Mr. Troppman also donated $1,000 to the Lutheran Youth Center. (Bemidji Daily Pioneer, May 24, 1963 and from his obituary in Dec 1970)