Samuel Kreidel
Values Codes: I – E – L
Samuel Kreidel (1855-1922) was born in Krakow, Poland (then part of the Russian Empire) and came to America by the 1870’s, settling in Santa Barbara, California.
He relocated in 1879 to Ellensburg, a small central Washington town (then and now) in the isolated Cascade Range, where he purchased a local general merchandise store and was an insurance broker.
Samuel Kreidel was elected to a two-year term on the Ellensburg city council in 1910 and won re-election twice.
In 1915, the voters elected him mayor and re-elected him six times. He died in office in 1922.
Samuel Kreidel’s ten elections were the most of any Jewish officeholder in Washington.
Source
- Mark Rutzik, Breaking New Ground: The Untold Story of Early America’s Jewish Electoral Pioneers – 1788 to 1920, 2025.
Mark Rutzick is the curator of this Samuel Kreidel exhibit.
