The Sterns of Fargo
Values Codes I – H – E – L
Alexander Stern (1857-1934), was born in the Hessian town of Giessen, north of Frankfurt.
Alexander Stern
He came to America from Germany in 1871 and arrived in Fargo in 1882 as the town’s first known Jewish resident.
He opened the city’s first clothing store and later expanded into banking, plumbing, and meat packing.
Alex Stern won election to the Fargo city council around 1896 for several terms, including one as council president.
Stern won a two-year term in the North Dakota house in 1910.
Three years later—with Fargo having converted to a commission form of local government—Stern won a four-year term as city commissioner.
In 1917, Fargo voters elected Alex Stern mayor for four years.
In 2007, Fargo historians rated Alex Stern one of the city’s five most influential people in its history.
His brother Max Stern (1857-1927), a partner in Alex’s clothing business, served two terms on the Fargo council in 1904-08 and was elected several times to the Fargo school board.
Community
Alex Stern helped build North Dakota’s Jewish life.
He was a founder of Fargo’s only synagogue and its B’nai B’rith lodge, North Dakota treasurer for the United Jewish
Appeal in 1915-27, trustee of the Cleveland Orphans Home, and North Dakota director for the National Jewish Hospital in Denver.
Stern chaired a committee of North Dakota Jews in 1918 who raised $100,000 (equal to $2 million in the 2020’s) to aid Jewish war refugees.
Alex Stern and his wife Bertha had three sons who had no direct heirs.
In the 1960’s, the three brothers set up the Alex Stern Family Foundation to manage the wealth they had received from their parents.
The foundation began distributing money in the 1970’s, has given over $16.5 million to Fargo-area nonprofits, and has assets of $10 million.
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 Sterns Family exhibit.
