Henry Stockmar

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Henry Stockmar in 1904

Henry Adolph Stockmar (born in Züg, Switzerland) was a brickmaker and builder, and a member of the Birmingham Board of Aldermen.

Stockmar was the son of Albert Stockmar, a Swiss lithographer and his German wife Margaret. He attended public schools in Switzerland to the age of 13, and then went to Cassel, Germany to learn the builders' trade. He also attended a polytechnic school in Stuttgart and took jobs in the trades across Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor, specializing as a brickmaker.

He advanced in his career as a supervisor in Eastern Europe, proceeding westward as far as Antwerp before crossing the Atlantic to work in Canada, where he was involved in building Montreal's Windsor Hotel. He worked as a mason on the Canadian Pacific Railroad in the Rocky Mountains and helped survey the Fraser River valley. He worked in Minneapolis, Chicago and New Orleans before making his way to Birmingham in 1887, where he finally settled down.

Stockmar was the contractor for the Loveman, Joseph & Loeb department store constructed in 1890 and for the Birmingham City Hall completed in 1901, as well as several other large buildings. He married Emma Cooper Jacobs in 1892 and had four children.

Stockmar was elected in 1901 to represent Birmningham's 9th Ward in the Board of Aldermen for a four-year term. He was also an active member in the city's Turn Verein club. In 1929 he was awarded a patent for a process for the manufacture of porous brick which utilized waste material from coal washeries as both fuel and material.