Gerhard Melvin Dahl

Who is Gerhard Melvin Dahl?

Gerhard Melvin Dahl was an American financier.

He was born in Fort Howard, Brown County, Wisconsin to Theodore Halverson Dahl, a Lutheran minister, and Rebekka Oline Dahl, who immigrated from Norway in about 1865. Dahl was a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, and as an attorney served as City Attorney and later was elected District Attorney in Portage County, Wisconsin. On June 5, 1900 Dahl married his first wife, Georgeana Dahl, the youngest daughter of Judge George Washington Cate of Stevens Point, Portage county, Wisconsin, who served one term in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat. In 1902 the Dahls suffered the loss of their only child, George Theodore Dahl, before his first birthday.

In 1910 Dahl was appointed Street Railroad Commissioner in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1912 went to work for Sidney V. Mitchell as vice president of Electric Bond and Share Company. On January 1, 1917 Dahl became a vice president of Chase Bank in New York City. In that position he led the three-year successful reorganization of the New Orleans Railway and Light Company.