Harry E. Sidles
An enumeration of the various business connections Harry E. Sidles has had in recent years demonstrates that he is one of the outstanding business men of Nebraska. In fact, few men in thirty years and from a start just about ‘even with the world’ have succeeded in attaching to themselves so many of the responsibilities and rewards of commercial endeavor.
Mr. Sidles is a native son of Nebraska, born at Nebraska City, January 1st 1875. His grandfather, Daniel Sidles, was the son of an immigrant who came to America from Germany. Daniel Sidles married a Miss Dorn. Their son Frank A. Sidles, was born at Berlin, in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, April 3rd 1841, and some years later accompanied his parents to Stephenson County, Illinois. Later he went back to Pennsylvania, where on February 19, 1866, he married Harriet Heffley, whose affection he had gained before leaving Pennsylvania. He took his bride to Illinois, and became a merchant at Dakota in that state. Then, in 1873, he moved out to Nebraska City, which was then a frontier village. Frank A. Sidles was one of the pioneer agents of the Singer Sewing Machine Company in Nebraska. About 1876 he located at Bennett, where he became immigration agent for the Burlington Railroad. Through his influence several colonies of German people were established along Stephens Creek. Later he engaged in the real estate business, and in 1888 removed to Lincoln, where he continued more or less active in the real estate business, though he was retired April 4, 1909. He and his wife had three children. The daughter Carrie W. died in July, 1889, shortly after her graduation from the University of Nebraska. The two surviving sons are Harry E. and Frank B. Sidles, both of Lincoln.
Harry E. Sidles lived during his boyhood at Bennett and after 1888 at Lincoln. He attended schools in both places, and after his high school course was a student for a year and a half in the University of Nebraska. Mr. Sidles in 1895 started in business as a dealer in bicycles and sporting goods. He was also a pioneer dealer in phonographs.
Owing to his connection with the bicycle business he had perhaps a keener appreciation of the meaning of the advent of the automobile than most people. In 1903 he became interested in automobiles as a dealer, when there were probably not as many cars in the entire country west of the Mississippi as there are today in the city of Lincoln. Mr. Sidles in 1909 became president and general manager of the Nebraska Buick Automobile Company, which was organized in that year. He has continued as the head of this institution ever since, and has made the Buick car and the Buick organization service one of the strongest in the state. The home of this business is at 245 North Thirteenth Street. It is a sales room and automobile headquarters which, as a building for the particular purpose, has attracted unqualified admiration from experts in the automobile business and is regarded as second to none in the United States.
While this business is in itself a satisfactory proof of Mr. Sidles’ general standing in the commercial affairs of Lincoln, there are a number of other enterprises with which his name has been associated, and some of these should be mentioned. For several years he was president of the old German-American State Bank, now the Continental State Bank. He has been vice president of the Lincoln Terminal Company, a director of the First National Bank and the First Trust & Savings Company, and financially and otherwise interested in the Lincoln Pure Butter Company, Des Moines Buick Automobile Company, Shultz Phonograph Company, Norfolk Buick Company at Norfolk, Nebraska, Ashland Bridge Company at Ashland, Nebraska, president and owner of Troutdale Hotel at Troutdale in the Pines, Evergreen, Colorado, and various amusement and theatrical enterprises. He is chairman of the board of the Rim Devices Corporation of Lincoln, Nebraska.
Mr. Sidles in proportion as he has prospered has given generously of his time and means for the benefit of many philanthropic and social undertakings. For several years he has been a director of the Y.M.C.A. and was instrumental in clearing the bonded indebtedness from the Y.M.C.A. properties. He built and donated the Hi-Y Club for the use of high school students. He is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, member of the B. P.O. Elks, and he and his family belong to the Plymouth Congregational Church.
In politics Harry E. Sidles is a Republican. Mr. Sidles married, in 1899, Miss Dorothy Stire. She was born at Lincoln, daughter of John C. Stire, one of the pioneers of that city. Mr. and Mrs. Sidles have two sons and one daughter, Fred, Harry and Mary.