Brewer, businessman, and civic leader, Lemp personified the American dream. Born in Niederwiesel, Hesse-Darmstadt, he arrived in the U.S. in 1852, at the age of fourteen, reportedly penniless. He traveled from New York to Louisville, where he worked as a store clerk. Like so many young men of that age, he got gold fever and went west to make his fortune in 1859. His first stop was Colorado and then a new territory, Idaho, with other miner friends. The U.S. Army created Fort Boise in the Boise Valley in 1863 and established a city there soon after. Lemp claimed he made it to Boise the day after the city was plated in July 1863. He mined briefly, but he must have realized there was more money to be made in what was known as “mining the miners”. He opened a brewery in Boise and shortly thereafter opened a saloon. He followed the miners to wherever there was a strike and opened saloons there as well. He also invested in real estate and bought a large farm outside of Boise where he grew grain for his beer, cultivated fruit and raised livestock. He married a fellow German immigrant, Catherine Kohlhepp in 1865. Together they had thirteen children!
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