The History of the Yakima Valley, Washington, Comprising Yakima, Kittitas and
Benton Counties, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1919, Volume II, page 1014 

MICHAEL LENTZ.

Michael Lentz is well known in business circles of Yakima as the president of
the Lentz Hardware Company, which was established in 1910. He is a native of
Dubuque, Iowa, where his birth occurred in 1870, his parents being Philip and
Frances (Ernsdorff) Lentz. The father, who successfully followed farming
throughout his active business career, is now living retired in Yakima.

Michael Lentz supplemented his early educational advantages by a course of study
in an Iowa business college and when a young man of twenty-two years entered the
heavy wholesale hardware business in Dubuque. This line of activity has always
claimed his attention and to his steady application to this one business his
success is undoubtedly due in large measure. In 1909 he left the Hawkeye state
and made his way to Yakima, Washington, where for a year he was employed in a
hardware store. In 1910 he established the Lentz Hardware Company, purchasing
the interests of the Haney Hardware Company, which had been organized in 1908.
The store is situated at the corner of Fourth and West Yakima avenues and is
fifty by one hundred and forty feet, with basement throughout. The company
carries a general line of hardware, also paints, oils and glass and does
plumbing and installation work of heating systems, having built up an extensive
and gratifying patronage in these lines. The officers of the concern are as
follows: Michael Lentz, president; Jacob Lentz, secretary and treasurer; and J.
B. Lentz, vice president. In addition to the hardware establishment Mr. Lentz
also owns a fine fruit orchard and his present prosperity is indeed well
deserved, for he is a man of excellent business ability, sound judgment and
unfaltering enterprise.

In 1897 Mr. Lentz was united in marriage to Miss Julia Kass, of Illinois, by
whom he has five children, as follows: Marie, who is a graduate of St. Joseph's
Academy; Loleti, a student in St. Joseph's Academy; Raymond, who is pursuing his
studies in Marquette College; and Cyril and Eva, both at home.

Politically Mr. Lentz is a stanch republican and he belongs to the Commercial
Club and to the Business Men's Association, taking an active part in the work of
these organizations to promote the advancement of Yakima along material lines.
His religious faith is indicated by his membership in St. Joseph's Catholic
church and his identification with the Knights of Columbus. His course has ever
been such as to win the esteem and regard of those with whom he has been
associated and he enjoys an enviable reputation as a representative and
successful citizen of Yakima.

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Submitted to the Washington Bios Project in January 2008 by Jeffrey L. Elmer.
Submitter has no additional information about the subject of this article.