Warren Mendenhall

by Rachael E. Martin, Club #25 Historian

Warren Mendenhall became a charter member of Rotary Club #25 with the classification of "Retail Clothing" in 1911 when he was 43 years old.
 

Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1868, and educated in the State Normal School in West Chester, Pa., Mendenhall came to Duluth in 1888. At first he worked for the North West Fuel Co., then became Secretary-Treasurer of the Duluth Dry Goods Co. In 1889, Mendenhall joined Hiram R. Elliott, a member of Elliott & Co., a wholesale dressed meat, provision and livestock business located at the foot of 37^th Avenue West. In 1905, he married the former Miss Anna M. Cook. Mendenhall was married, working at Elliott & Co. and living at 429 North 26^th Avenue West, when he joined Club 25 in 1911.
 

By 1923, Mendenhall was working at the Big Duluth store, a retail men's and boy's furnishings business. He became president of Big Duluth in 1928.
 

Mendenhall was known as an active conservationist. He did game and fish conservation work with the Izaak Walton League on the local and state level. He was also a member of the Duluth Boat Club and the Society of Friends. In Club 25, Mendenhall actively promoted construction of key roads to this region through the Roads Committee. He was also involved with Club 25's Boys Club and 4H Committee.
 

In 1939, when he was 71 years old, Mendenhall died of a heart attack while parking his automobile downtown going to the theater with his wife. His wife and four daughters survived him in their home at 1009 E. 1^st Street. Funeral services were held at Crawford Chapel in Duluth and interment was in Minneapolis.