Paul Heilbrun of Portland, Oregon
Dec 19, 2020 2:18:52 GMT -8
Post by Uncle Buddy on Dec 19, 2020 2:18:52 GMT -8
There is no trace of this guy anywhere on earth. It's a common enough name until you look for this particular Paul Heilbrun and suddenly no one is him.
In 1896 a newspaper article appeared in Portland, name of the newspaper is unknown but the dates given by the papers that copied it were November 9 and 10. Finding that article should be top priority. It can probably be found here oregonnews.uoregon.edu/ by reading the whole newspaper but the search engine didn't turn it up. I've also tried three other websites that have images of Oregon newspapers but none of the search engines found it, so the article is either in a span of time that was not microfilmed or else the OCR for that page has not been corrected yet. The other possibility is that the Oregon newspaper that the article appeared in is not one of the papers that is currently online.
Why look for the original article? The home town newspaper usually carried a long article with lots of details when an inventor went downtown to seek publicity. Then this longer article was digested by other papers across the country. The article about Paul Heilbrun was syndicated nationwide but only the San Francisco Call mentioned the personal details about Paul that I'm about to dole out. I'm hoping the original article will have more details about him.
Paul said he worked for Southern Pacific Railroad. He gave the usual speech (my compressed air engine will revolutionize industry by replacing all fueled machines, etc.) He said he'd spent a fortune of $40,000 traveling around the world to meet other compressed air inventors. He was married and over the age of 60. That's all we know about him, and we don't know how much of that is even accurate. Newspaper reporters were taking notes by hand in those days and often mis-spelled names. A 25-year-old reporter could have thought his subject was over 60 when the man might have been 48. But so far I'm going with over 60 and striking out completely.
The name Heilbrun was not common in Portland in those days. There was a wealthy Jewish merchant family (Heilborn) in Astoria who had relatives named Julius Heilborn and Charles Heilborn living in Portland. Charles' son Carl W had a career as a set designer in Hollywood. Julius died in Portland in 1919. He was unmarried but said Carl was his only relative in Portland.
There was a wealthy merchant family in Washington DC that had relatives in Portland. I'm sure this is the same family, but haven't proved it yet. Another Julius Heilborn in St. Paul, Minnesota was an inventor. Possibly this Julius is related to the other one since the Astoria family came to Oregon from Minnesota. They're all from Germany originally so any spelling including Heilbrunner could be the same family. Two brothers could literally spell the name differently.
I've already searched for Charles Theodore Heilburn of Astoria who came to the US in 1846 and spent a few years in Cincinnati before moving to Minnesota, but I can't find a trace of him in 1850. The closest I could come was Abraham and
Heilbrun in Allen County, Indiana which is less than 150 miles from Cincinnati. In Cincinnati I found a Barney Hilburn who could be part of the conspiracy to keep Paul Heilbrun hidden from site so I could have some fun in 2020. Aside from looking for that Oregon news article of Nov 9/10 of 1896, Barney, Abraham and should be next in line for a thorough investigation.
This is gonna drive me crazy. It might take a couple years to find him. Usually not looking for a long time gives the internet sources time to expand.
In 1896 a newspaper article appeared in Portland, name of the newspaper is unknown but the dates given by the papers that copied it were November 9 and 10. Finding that article should be top priority. It can probably be found here oregonnews.uoregon.edu/ by reading the whole newspaper but the search engine didn't turn it up. I've also tried three other websites that have images of Oregon newspapers but none of the search engines found it, so the article is either in a span of time that was not microfilmed or else the OCR for that page has not been corrected yet. The other possibility is that the Oregon newspaper that the article appeared in is not one of the papers that is currently online.
Why look for the original article? The home town newspaper usually carried a long article with lots of details when an inventor went downtown to seek publicity. Then this longer article was digested by other papers across the country. The article about Paul Heilbrun was syndicated nationwide but only the San Francisco Call mentioned the personal details about Paul that I'm about to dole out. I'm hoping the original article will have more details about him.
Paul said he worked for Southern Pacific Railroad. He gave the usual speech (my compressed air engine will revolutionize industry by replacing all fueled machines, etc.) He said he'd spent a fortune of $40,000 traveling around the world to meet other compressed air inventors. He was married and over the age of 60. That's all we know about him, and we don't know how much of that is even accurate. Newspaper reporters were taking notes by hand in those days and often mis-spelled names. A 25-year-old reporter could have thought his subject was over 60 when the man might have been 48. But so far I'm going with over 60 and striking out completely.
The name Heilbrun was not common in Portland in those days. There was a wealthy Jewish merchant family (Heilborn) in Astoria who had relatives named Julius Heilborn and Charles Heilborn living in Portland. Charles' son Carl W had a career as a set designer in Hollywood. Julius died in Portland in 1919. He was unmarried but said Carl was his only relative in Portland.
There was a wealthy merchant family in Washington DC that had relatives in Portland. I'm sure this is the same family, but haven't proved it yet. Another Julius Heilborn in St. Paul, Minnesota was an inventor. Possibly this Julius is related to the other one since the Astoria family came to Oregon from Minnesota. They're all from Germany originally so any spelling including Heilbrunner could be the same family. Two brothers could literally spell the name differently.
I've already searched for Charles Theodore Heilburn of Astoria who came to the US in 1846 and spent a few years in Cincinnati before moving to Minnesota, but I can't find a trace of him in 1850. The closest I could come was Abraham and
Heilbrun in Allen County, Indiana which is less than 150 miles from Cincinnati. In Cincinnati I found a Barney Hilburn who could be part of the conspiracy to keep Paul Heilbrun hidden from site so I could have some fun in 2020. Aside from looking for that Oregon news article of Nov 9/10 of 1896, Barney, Abraham and should be next in line for a thorough investigation.This is gonna drive me crazy. It might take a couple years to find him. Usually not looking for a long time gives the internet sources time to expand.