Richard Elsner was born on May 29, 1859 in Silesia, Germany. He immigrated to Milwaukee in 1880 and was employed as a brewery worker. Around this time he joined the Knights of Labor and held office on the Executive Board District Assembly 108. He held various offices in Brewery Workers Union Local No. 9. He organized the first national boycott against a brewery and was successful in having that brewery unionized. This led to other breweries being unionized. In 1886 he was elected Justice of the Peace on the Labor ticket. That same year he married Emma Melster. He studied law in the evenings at the old Milwaukee Law School, and received his degree from the University of Wisconsin. In 1910, when Emil Seidel was mayor, Elsner was elected Civil Judge. He was elected Register of Deeds in 1918 and served for four years. One of the founders of the Commonwealth Mutual Savings Bank, he was also a Socialist member of the Wisconsin Legislature. He died on January 18, 1938 after a brief illness.
