Professor Ferdinand Puehringer, Conductor and Composer

Ferdinand Puehringer led a band at Cedar Point in the 1880s. He is pictured below with several  band members, including Fred Bauman, Maxwell Godfrey, J. Bolton, Ed Pelding, M. McAdams, Joseph Bock, and Max Wintrich. (Fred Bauman was a pioneer musician in Sandusky, having also been director of the Great Western Band and a member of Ackley’s Band. Read more about Fred Bauman in the 1922 Obituary Notebook, located in the Archives Research Center.)

Before moving to Cleveland in 1872, Ferdinand Puehringer was a professor at Wittenberg College. While in Cleveland, he was associated with many musical groups, including the Boys Band, a singing and orchestra school, and the Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1889, Professor Puehringer accepted a position with the S. Brainard Sons Company, a musical publishing house in Chicago. He wrote the Chicago Life Waltz in 1890, and also produced several operas, including The Czar and Zimmerman, and The Bohemian Girl.

Ferdinand Puehringer died in 1930, and his wife Mary Emich Puehringer died in 1938. They left behind a daughter Ritta Caldwell. 

(*Note: As often is the case in the spelling of surnames of European origin, Ferdinand’s last name was alternatively spelled Pueringer or Pureinger.)