Peter Staub

Who was Peter Staub?

Peter Staub was a Swiss-born American businessman, politician, and diplomat. He immigrated to the United States in 1854, and moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1856, where he lived for most of the remainder of his life. Staub served as mayor of Knoxville in the early 1870s and early 1880s, and built the city's first opera house, Staub's Theatre, in 1872. Staub also aided Swiss immigration to the Southern Appalachian region, helping establish what is now the town of Gruetli-Laager, Tennessee, in 1869. In 1885, President Grover Cleveland appointed Staub U.S. Consul to Switzerland.