Alexander Seiler I.

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Alexander Seiler I.

Alexander Seiler the Elder (born February 21, 1819 in Blitzingen im Goms, Canton of Valais, † July 10, 1891 in Zermatt ) was a Swiss hotel pioneer and Grand Councilor in Valais. He was one of the pioneers of tourism in Zermatt.

Live and act

Alexander Seiler the Elder was the son of the mountain farmer Christian Seiler (1788–1877) and Maria Josepha, b. Bürcher. He completed an apprenticeship as a soap maker and candle maker in Munderkingen in southern Baden and opened a less successful factory in Sion (French: Sion) in 1845 . His sisters Rosina and Katharina ran an inn in Blitzingen. This ropemaker's house fell victim to a village fire in 1932.

His brother Joseph (1817–1863) had been a chaplain in Zermatt since 1847, where the surgeon Joseph Lauber (1787–1868) opened a modest wooden chalet with three double rooms in 1838. In 1839 the Valais government prohibited the village clergy from accommodating strangers. In February 1848 he reported to Alexander that many visitors to Zermatt had expressed the desire for an inn on the Riffelberg.

Alexander followed his brother to Zermatt in 1850, where he initially worked in the hospitality industry. Since the surgeon was tired of "hosting and complementing", Seiler was able to lease the village inn in 1853. With the help of his brother, the lawyer Franz (1827–1863), he was able to buy the house the following year and soon afterwards expand it into the Hotel Monte Rosa .

In 1857 he married Catharina Cathrein (1834–1895) from Brig . The 16-time mother was responsible for the bookkeeping and correspondence of the growing hotel company and founded the Elisabethenverein in Brig around 1861 . Seiler's brother-in-law Emil Cathrein then also entered the hotel industry.

Alexander Seiler bought and leased other hostels in Zermatt, such as the Mont Cervin opened by Joseph Anton Clemenz in 1857 and the Des Alpes . In 1856 he acquired the first parcels in the hamlet of Riffelalp, which is 600 m higher, and had a grand hotel built there from 1878–1884. The English founded the Alpine Club in 1857 and Thomas Cook offered the first package tours to Switzerland six years later. The first ascent of the Matterhorn by his guest Edward Whymper , with the return march ending tragically, brought the place great fame.

Since ski tourism had not yet been invented, Seiler only ran his hotels in the summer months and lived in Brig in the winter. For his trade he was dependent on wood and pasture, which as a non-citizen he had no access to. The locals were often suspicious of him and feared major changes in traditions and the landscape. When he applied to be buried in Zermatt in 1871, this was rejected by the civic council, based, among other things, on his residence in Brig. In 1882 he acquired the rights to the parts of the Alps from Hans Anton Roten. Only shortly before his death, after an 18-year legal battle, did he manage to lock his family in place.

As the Valais Grand Councilor for the Goms district from 1869 to 1891 , he campaigned for the expansion of transport routes such as the Gornergrat Railway and the Riffelalptram to Riffelalp.

His widow ran the company, supported by his sons Alexander the Disciples (1864–1920) and Joseph (1858–1929). In order to introduce electric lighting in Zermatt, on July 25, 1892, the Zermatt community and the Visp-Zermatt Bahn participated in a syndicate to build the Triftbach power plant, which went into operation two years later. The brothers, including Hermann , paid off the numerous sisters after the turn of the century and brought the hotel operations and associated real estate into the Alexandre Seiler & Frères company .

literature

  • Alois Grichting: Das Oberwallis, 1840 to 1990. P. 303.
  • Roland Flückiger-Seiler: Hotel dreams between glaciers and palm trees: Swiss tourism and hotel construction 1830–1920. Pp. 47, 83.
  • Mark Andreas Seiler: One glacier - one hotel - one family. Horizons of a Valais hotelier dynasty , Rotten Verlag, Visp 2012, ISBN 978-3-905756-67-8 , p. 195 ff. (With numerous references.)
  • Karl In-Albon: Family tree of the Seiler von Blitzingen and Mühlebach family.
  • Joseph Jung : The Laboratory of Progress. Switzerland in the 19th Century , NZZ Libro, Basel 2019, ISBN 978-3-03810-435-3 , p. 49; 86; 101 f .; 179; 186; 396; 508; 516 f .; 519 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.obergommer.ch/genealogie/14695.htm
  2. ^ Supplements to the yearbook of the Swiss Alpine Club. Volume 38; P. 30.
  3. ↑ Christian Imboden, Berge: Beruf, Berufung, Schicksal , Rotten Verlag, Visp, 2013, page 37 and Stanislaus Kronig, Family Statistics and History of Zermatt , 1927, page 286
  4. ↑ Bernard Truffer: Lauber, Joseph. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  5. ↑ Cultural history of the German restaurant. P. 435
  6. ^ Bernard Truffer: Seiler (-Cathrein), Catharina. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  7. ↑ http://www.obergommer.ch/genealogie/14696.htm
  8. ↑ Festschrift for the 50th Elisabethenverein (Brig); 1911.
  9. ↑ The resort and its history. In: Riffelalp Resort 2222m. Retrieved March 20, 2020 .
  10. ↑ http://www.swissworld.org/de/bevoelkerung/die_ersten_bergsteiger/alexander_seiler
  11. ↑ http://www.amtsdruckschriften.bar.admin.ch/viewOrigDoc.do?id=10008509
  12. ^ Bernard Truffer: Seiler, Alexander. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  13. ^ Bernard Truffer: Seiler, Joseph. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  14. ^ History of the Zermatt power station ( Memento from March 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ↑ Wilhelminian style and Belle Epoque ( Memento from October 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Seiler, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hotel pioneer in Zermatt and Grand Council
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1819
PLACE OF BIRTH Blitzingen
DATE OF DEATH July 10, 1891
Place of death Zermatt