Emil Ganz

Who was Emil Ganz?

Emil Ganz was a businessman and three-time mayor of Phoenix, Arizona.

He fought in Georgia during the American Civil War, on the Confederate side. From a German Jewish background, he was an atheist, and brought his children up as atheists.

Ganz lived in Prescott, Arizona, before moving to Phoenix in 1879. He established the Bank Exchange Hotel that same year and, in 1885, built a wholesale liquor business. He sold his liquor store in 1895 and served for 25 years as president of the National Bank of Arizona.

He began his political career with a two-year term on the Phoenix City Council, before being elected mayor in 1885 and 1899. During his first term as mayor, one of the city's most destructive fires burned 13 businesses on April 26, 1885, including Ganz's own Bank Exchange Hotel. Phoenix had no fire department or waterworks at the time, and Ganz urged the City Council to establish these improvements. It wasn't until after another fire on August 6, 1886, that funding for a waterworks facility and volunteer fire department was approved.

In 2001, professional historian Mark Pry wrote a biography of Ganz, Immigrant Banker: The Life of Emil Ganz.