Harmon L. Remmel

Harmon Liveright Remmel (January 15, 1852 – October 14, 1927), was a German-American politician and businessman. He led the Arkansas Republican Party from roughly 1913 to his death in 1927.

Family and early life

Remmel's father Gottlieb Remmel (1813–1892), a tanner, and mother Henrietta (Bever) Remmel (1814–1896) were born in Germany; they came to the United States in 1848 to avoid conscription into the army. They came first to New York state, where Harmon was born in 1852 in the rural town of Stratford near the southern edge of the modern Adirondack Park. Remmel attended Fairfield Academy in nearby Fairfield, New York and then taught school for a year. In 1871 he and his older brother Augustus Caleb Remmel (1847–1883) went to Fort Wayne, Indiana and engaged in several enterprises, ending up in the lumber business. From 1874 to 1876 they went to New York City and worked as a representative of their firm there. Finally in 1876 he and his brother set up the Remmel Brothers Lumber Company in Newport, Arkansas, which they operated together until his brother's death in 1883.

Business career

In 1896 Remmel left the lumber business and moved to Little Rock, where he became the Arkansas general manager for the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, a post he held until 1922. In 1902 he organized the Mercantile Trust Company, a bank which he led as president until 1912; he then organized another bank, the Banker's Trust, and led that 1914–1923.