Charles William Giese

Charles William Giese was a German-born merchant tailor who operated one of Poplar Bluff's longstanding clothing establishments during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in Mannheim, Germany, in 1861, Giese immigrated to the United States as a young man. Genealogical records give differing immigration years, including 1874 and 1880. By the early 1880s, he had established family connections in Missouri, marrying Jonnie Cole in Iron County on December 6, 1882. Giese became an established figure in Poplar Bluff's clothing trade. A December 8, 1898, profile in the Poplar Bluff Republican described him as the city's oldest merchant tailor and identified his establishment on Fourth Street. His business offered custom-made clothing using imported and domestic fabrics. In October 1909, Giese advertised new fall suitings at his establishment at 415 South Fourth Street. An accompanying newspaper account stated that he had been conducting business in Poplar Bluff for approximately twenty-five years, suggesting a business history reaching back to the mid-1880s. In September 1912, Giese moved his tailoring establishment from Fourth Street to a renovated storefront on Main Street, previously occupied by August Winkler's jewelry business. By 1913, advertisements identified his business as Charles Giese, That Exclusive Tailor, at 208 South Main Street. His advertisements emphasized fashionable clothing, skilled workmanship, and custom tailoring. Contemporary city directories also associate several other tailors with his establishment, suggesting an operation employing multiple skilled workers. Giese and his wife maintained a family home on Poplar Street, documented specifically as 625 Poplar Street in early twentieth-century city directories. Their household appears frequently in local records, including newspaper reports concerning their daughters and social gatherings. Giese died in Poplar Bluff on July 15, 1921, according to the genealogical information identified during this research. His widow Jonnie continued to be associated with the family residence at 625 Poplar Street in subsequent directories. City directories and later histories add further detail. The 1906 and 1908 Poplar Bluff directories list C. W. Giese under Tailors at 415 Fourth Street, and the 1909-1910 Dunham directory again places him at 415 South Fourth Street, with the family residing at 625 Poplar Street. A 1911 directory records Charles Giese at 415 South Fourth. An early promotional account of the city states that Giese came to Poplar Bluff in January 1882 with Frank Gierse and that the two established the city's first merchant tailoring firm; in May 1883 Gierse's interest was purchased by Henry C. Cole, and the business continued as Giese & Cole, merchant tailors and dealers in gents' furnishing goods at the corner of Fourth and Maple Streets, offering made-to-order clothing, cleaning, and repairing. Goodspeed's History of Southeast Missouri likewise identifies him as a merchant tailor in Poplar Bluff.