The John Pritzlaff Hardware Company was founded in 1850 by John Pritzlaff (1820-1900), in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. John Pritzlaff was born in 1820 in Trutzlatz, a province of Pomerania, Prussia. He immigrated to America in 1839 and worked his way westward by working various jobs along the way, such as a laborer on the Genesee Canal in Pennsylvania. By 1841 he reached Milwaukee and became a teamster for nine dollars a month. In 1842 he was a cook on a lake steamer and the following year supported himself by cutting timber at the site of Schlitz Park. In 1843 he entered the hardware field where he was employed by Shepardson and Farwell as a porter, earning 200 dollars a year. The following year Shepardson sold out to Nazro and King and Mr. Pritzlaff continued in the latter's employment. He remained with Nazro and Company until 1850.
In the year 1850, John Pritzlaff, along with August F. Suelflohn and Henry J. Nazro, opened a small retail hardware store called John Pritzlaff and Company. Nazro was a silent partner, but carried the financial burden. In 1853 Suelflohn was bought out by Pritzlaff and in 1866 Nazro withdrew, leaving the entire business with John Pritzlaff as proprietor of a large and rapidly growing business. By 1884 Pritzlaff incorporated the John Pritzlaff Hardware Company. The company kept growing and moving until it became the largest hardware store in Milwaukee and the entire region. When John Pritzlaff died in 1900, his son, Frederick C. Pritzlaff, took over the company. The John Pritzlaff Hardware Company appears in the Milwaukee City Directory for the last time in 1958.
