John C. Koch was a Republican politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

 who served two terms as mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 28th most populous city in the United States and 39th most populous region in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. According to 2010 census data, the...

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Koch was born in 1841 near Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. He moved with his family to Milwaukee in 1854. He became a tinner in his father's shop, eventually becoming an executive of the John Pritzlaff Hardware company. He married Pritzlaff's daughter, Elizabeth, in 1864.

Koch received his party's nomination for lieutenant-governor in 1892. He was instead elected mayor of Milwaukee in that year, and was reelected to a second two-year term in 1894. His first term saw the Panic of 1893

Panic of 1893

The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in 1893. Similar to the Panic of 1873, this panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures...

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