Career
When Trexler began his career, in the late 1860s, Allentown, the commercial center of the agriculturally rich Lehigh Valley region, was undergoing a tumultuous economic transition. The town's first burst of growth had been fueled by the construction of the Lehigh Canal, by the boom in anthracite coal, and by the growth of an extensive local anthracite iron industry. In the early 1870s, the invention of Bessemer steel-making technology, the discovery of bituminous coal in western Pennsylvania, and the national depression following the Civil War destroyed the local economy (Folsom 1981; Hall & Hall 1982, 1987a).
Led by a visionary Board of Trade, in which Trexler was active, Allentown determined to diversify its economy, giving generous incentives to enterprises willing to locate in the city (Gobron 1916). The success of this initiative set off a housing boom from which the Trexler firm profited enormously. By the first World War, Trexler's lumber business was among the largest in the United States, owning tracts of timber and sawmills in Mississippi, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, with distribution yards in Portsmouth, Virginia and Newark, New Jersey (Hall & Hall 1987).
Allentown's diversified economy and ethos of cooperation, which Trexler did so much to foster, enabled it to escape the worst ravages of the Great Depression. In 1939, Allentown actually had more enterprises in operation than it had during the boom of the 1920s (Hall & Hall 1987b).
In 1911, he was appointed Colonel and Quartermaster General of the Pennsylvania National Guard, and in 1916, he served during the mobilization of troops on the Mexican border. In 1917, he prepared troops for service in WWI and retired in 1918 as a Brigadier General.
Read more about this topic: Harry Clay Trexler
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