06/19/2026
The week's Who What When Where features this man's obituary.
Who: Rudolf O. Shenkner
"From a printer's devil to the town's most affluent citizen was the ladder climbed by Rudolph Othmar Shenkner. With his widowed mother, Mr. Shenkner came here as a poor emigrant boy of 6 years from his home in Zurich, Switzerland, where he was born November 16, 1851.
After an apprenticeship under an editor whose Southern sympathies brought only trouble and extra work, he formed a partnership in March 1873, with Richard Jacquemin and for years they conducted one of the largest merchandise stores in Platte County. Twenty years ago, he sold the store, but continued in real estate and other trading.
Mr. Shenkner was a born "trader." When the operation of the large h**p houses, the last of which he owned, became unprofitable, he treaded in small quantity shipments for h**p growers. Before the advent of elevators, he acted as broker for many now prominent Platte County wheat growers. He traded in corn, wool and fur and in the beginning of his business career his store was the favorite market for farm women who sold him carpet rags, goose feathers, wool hose and lincey.
At the time of his death he owned considerable real estate here and in Kansas City. Until two years ago, he was a frequent trader on the Kansas City grain exchange.
In the decade when "East Lynn," "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "Way Down East," minstrels and old Blind Boone were favorites with theater-going public, Mr. Shenkner invested in an opera house for Weston, for many years the mecca for crowds from all over Platte County.
Mr. Shenkner is survived by seven children, Mrs. J. A. Cooper, Reno, Nev.; Mrs. A. A. MacMillian, Kansas City; Mrs. B. J. Cooper and Mrs. W. J. Leake, Anaheim, Cal.; Mrs. W. C. Kelly, Jacquemin and R. O. Shenkner, Jr., Weston."
