Recently the Mulzer family lost one of the brothers who started Mulzer Crushed Stone, Inc. Edgar was the youngest of 3 brothers (Arnold, Roland and Edgar) who started Mulzer Brothers in the middle of the Great Depression. This linked article tells us about his life and his impact on Spencer County and all of Southwest Indiana.
By VINCE LUECKE, Editor
SPENCER COUNTY – Edgar C. Mulzer, who helped provide the basic building materials that helped Spencer County and southern Indiana grow for decades, died Jan. 23.
In the late 1940s, along with his brothers Arnold and Roland, Mulzer started the business of limestone quarries and Ohio River sand-and-gravel dredging operations that provided aggregates for highways, bridges and dam construction. The brothers’ first quarries were located at Eckerty, Derby, Cape Sandy and Temple and operated distribution and sales locations in Rockport, Newburgh, Evansville, and Gibson County. The company’s main office was located, as it is today, in Tell City.
Edgar and Roland left the stone business in 1969 and brother Arnold Mulzer’s children took over the company. In 1972, Edgar Mulzer entered the banking business and became chairman and chief executive officer of Dale State Bank. During his tenure, the Grandview, Rockport and Chrisney banks were joined with Dale State Bank and a new branch was built in Hatfield.
The combined locations became the Lincolnland Bancorp and were merged with National City Bank in Evansville in 1994.
One of his major objectives in his business and banking life was to nurture small businesses to help them grow and provide communities with jobs. Mulzer was an early investor and supporter of Thermwood and Spencer Plastics corporations located in Dale. He served on the board of directors for Huntingburg Bank, Spencer Plastics and Thermwood and remained active well into his retirement years.
Mulzer was one of the founding members of Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Tell City.
He was a World War II veteran, entering the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942. He served as a B-25 crew chief during the war. He was ordered to North Africa in February 1942 and moved with the U.S. forces across North Africa, and into Italy and Corsica as the war progressed until its end.
From his early years, Mulzer had a curiosity and love for travel. He made his first cross-country drive to California in the winter of 1940 in a new car he had just purchased.
He repeated this drive to California in 1948 with his new bride, Roberta Kramer of Chrisney. Another cross-country drive to San Diego was made in 2007 at the age of 89 with his daughter and son-in-law to attend a World War II reunion of his U.S. Air Force unit, the 57th Bomb Wing. Mulzer took his longest driving trip in 1997, traveling roundtrip from Tell City, across the U.S. to Canada and following the Trans-Alaskan Highway to Fairbanks, Alaska.
Along with family and friends, he visited more than 50 countries from Antarctica to the Arctic Circle. Among his excursions were safaris to Africa, a visit to the Galapagos Islands, watching an eclipse of the sun in Peru and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro at age 75.
He enjoyed traveling with his family to Italy, Alaska and Germany where they visited the ancestral home in Bavaria of his grandfather, Wolfgang Mulzer, who settled near Evanston in 1850.
In later years, Mulzer and his wife formed the Edgar and Roberta Mulzer Foundation to support organizations and charities across southern Indiana with emphasis on Spencer, Perry and Crawford counties.
