Business & brands / Politics / Food
George C. Langdon
1833–1909 · brewer, maltster, mayor of Detroit
Bookkeeper turned brewer and maltster who was Detroit's 38th mayor (1878–1879) and later, after losing his fortune, worked as a clerk at City Hall.
- Born
Geneva, New York- Died
Geneva, New York
aged 76- Birth name
- George Curtis Langdon
- Also known as
- George Curtis Langdon
- Detroit years
- 1850s–1900s
- Field
- Business & brands, Politics, Food
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
George C. Langdon grew up in upstate New York, clerked for a wholesale firm and spent three years farming near Flint before moving to Detroit, where he studied bookkeeping at Gregory Commercial College. He kept books for a copper-smelting firm and a bank, went into the commission business, and in 1864 bought a brewery with a partner, trading as Langdon and Company; by 1870 he was sole owner. A few years later he sold the brewery and became a maltster, supplying the city's many breweries, and built a comfortable fortune. Elected as a Democrat, he served one term as mayor, 1878–1879. Afterward a series of reverses wiped out most of his wealth, and the former mayor took a job as a clerk in the same City Hall where he had once presided as mayor. His wife and a daughter died in the 1880s, and he returned to his hometown of Geneva, New York, where he died in 1909.
Highlights
- 38th mayor of Detroit, 1878–1879
- Owner of Langdon and Company brewery from 1864
- Later worked as a clerk at Detroit City Hall