George Banta

From June 25, 2012

From the Dictionary of Wisconsin biography:   

Born in Covington, Kentucky in 1857, George Banta graduated from Indiana University in 1876, and was admitted to the Indiana bar in 1878. He practiced law and sold insurance before moving to Wisconsin in 1884 as an agent for the Phenix Insurance Company of Brooklyn, New York.  After a brief residence in Madison, he moved to Menasha about 1885, staying in the insurance business until 1908, but after 1901 was primarily occupied with the George Banta Publishing Company, of which he remained president until his death. The company expanded rapidly and became one of the finest book publishing concerns in the state. In addition to book printing, the company specialized in the publications of learned societies and college fraternities, and, by 1930, it was printing some 130 periodicals. He served as alderman (1890-1891), and mayor (1892, 1895, 1902-1903) of Menasha.  An active businessman, he was president of the Central Paper Company of Menasha and a director of the First National Bank of Menasha. He died in 1935.