Hunt, Herbert and Floyd C. Kaylor.  Washington: West of the 
Cascades.  Vol. III.  Chicago, S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1917.  
p. 430-432.

LINDBERG, GUSTAF: There is perhaps no life history in this volume 
which indicates more clearly what may be accomplished when 
perseverance and energy lead the way than does the record of Gustaf 
Lindberg, who as the architect of his own fortunes has builded 
wisely and well.  He had no special advantages to aid him as he 
started out in life and placed his dependence upon the substantial 
quality of industry and suplemented it by unassailable business 
integrity.  Today he is at the head of the Lindberg Grocery Company, 
one of the foremost commerical enterprises of Tacoma, and is equally 
prominent in financial and industrial circles as the vice president and 
one of the directors of the Sandinavian Bank, as the president of the 
Mountain Roll Mill Company and as president of the Inland Logging 
Company and the Judith Land Company.  He is likewise sole owner of 
the North Coast Fish Company and is a large stockholder and vice 
president of the Columbia Valley Fruit Company.  His activities have 
thus covered a broad field and have contributed in substantial measure 
to the general prosperity of the northwest.
	Mr. Lindberg's residence in Tacoma covers twenty-seven years.  In the 
little town of Molnbacka, in the midst of the iron mines of the 
Scandinavian peninsula, he was born in 1865.  There he spent his youth 
in a district featured by mountain, stream, lake and forest, affording 
ample opportunity for fishing and hunting.  He acquired a public school 
education and when he was fifteen years of age his father sent him to 
Stockholm to learn the grocery business.  During the eight years in 
which he was thoroughly acquainting himself with the trade in the 
capital city he also improved the opportunity for attending the municipal 
night schools, in which he gained technical education.  He could speak 
little or no English when in 1889 he crossed the Atlantic and joined his 
brothers, who were then residents of Tacoma.  He secured a position in 
a large grocery house, which failed two years later.  In 1891 he joined 
his brother, John LIndberg, in opening a little grocery store at the corner 
of South Eleventh and G streets, starting upon the venture with thirteen 
hundred dollars of borrowed capital.  They conducted their business upon 
a cash basis, not only demanding cash in payment for goods sold but also 
giving cash for anything which they purchased.  During the first two 
years they employed no assistants but their trade steadily grew and one 
after another they added to their force of employees.  After having been 
associated in business for nine years, they dissolved the partnership in 
1900, John continuing in the retail trade.  Later Gustaf Lindberg founded 
what is now known as the Lindberg Grocery Company, which today has 
one of the largest grocery establishments of the city.  On the 4th of April, 
1912, they opened a new four-story business block for the insepction of 
their friends and customers.  Mr. LIndberg made this a festal day, serving 
refreshments in the Scandinavian style.  The building, erected at a cost of 
forty thousand dollars, was built upon the site which he purchased in 
1906.  It is a four-story structure, one hundred by one hundred feet and 
extends back to the Northern Pacific siding, thus affording excellent 
shipping facilities.  The building is a fireproof structure to which other 
stories can be added without disturbing those already erected, for the 
building has been placed upon a very substantial foundation.  The trade has 
constantly increased from the beginning and the name of LIndberg has 
become a synonym for enterprising activity in the grocery field of the 
northwest.
	This, however, represents but one phase of his business connections, for 
as the years have gone on Mr. Lindberg has extended his efforts, his 
cooperation being sought in the financial support and in the active 
management of many important buisness concerns.  Since 1907 he has been 
vice president and a director of the Scandinavian Bank.  To the Mountain 
Roll Mill Company, the Inland Logging Company and the Judith Land Company 
he holds the connection of president, and he is a sole owner of the business 
conducted under the name of the Lindberg Grocery Company and also North 
Coast Fish Company, the largest importers of foreign fish on the Pacific 
coast, also doing an extensive export business.  Mr. Lindberg likewise holds 
considerable stock in the Columbia Valley Fruit Company, of which he is 
the vice president.  His persistency of purpose, his intelligently directed 
energy and his initiative have been strong elements in his growing success 
and today he stands among the foremost business men and merchants of 
his city.
	In Tacoma, in the Swedish Lutheran church, on the 11th of July, 1894, 
was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Lindberg and Miss Caroline Johnson, a 
native of Sweden, who came alone to America in February, 1889.  She is a 
daughter of John Anderson, a successful agriculturalist and lumberman of 
the old country, where Mr. and Mrs. Lindberg spent the summer of 1906.  
They have become the parents of four children.  Gustaf Heimer, born April 
15, 1895, is a student in the State University.  Wilmar Hilding, born 
October 12, 1897, is also a student in the University.  Martha Evelyn, born 
April 29, 1901, is attending Stadium high school.  Judith Caroline, born 
May 17, 1909, is a public school pupil.  The family own and occupy a 
beautiful home at No. 222 North J street, near Wright park, commanding a 
splendid view of the mountains and of the bay.
	Mr. Lindberg votes with the republican party where national issues are 
involved but maintains an independent attitude in relation to local politics.  
He belongs to the Commercial Club and thus cooperates in well defined 
plans for the city's improvement.  He was one of a committee of ten to get 
the municipal dock for Tacoma.  He is a member of the Lakewood Country 
Club and he is a devoted member of the Swedish Lutheran church, in which 
he served as trustee for a quarter of a century, retiring from that office 
on the 1st of January, 1916.  His entire life has been one of the utmost 
fidelity to duty.  early in his career he realized that one must be willing 
to pay the price of success, which is only gained at the cost of earnest, 
self-denying effort.  He has ever directed his business by the rules which 
govern strict and unswerving integrity and unfaltering industry and his 
history proves that success and an honored name may be won 
simultaneously.

Submitted by: Jenny Tenlen

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Notice: These biographies were transcribed for the Washington Biographies
Project.  Unless otherwise stated, no further information is available on the
individual featured in the biographies.