Patrolman Jacob Kuenzel | Cincinnati Police Department

Age: 42
Served: 10½ years
January 6, 1905 to June 24, 1916

Jacob Kuenzel was a cigar store owner and news dealer at May and McMillan Streets when he married Katie in 1901 and when their first son was born on September 26, 1902. But, by January 6, 1905, he decided to become a policeman and was appointed as a Substitute Patrolman for the Cincinnati Police Department.

Patrolman Kuenzel was assigned to the 7th District in Walnut Hills, where he lived and where he had had his cigar store. Already by October 1905, he had shown his bravery when he singlehandedly took on a combative man with a razor, two blocks from his home, at Boone and Wilkinson Streets, and then fended off an angry crowd, without either the prisoner or himself being cut. During December 1908, he and Patrolman Jones responded to a 16 year old youth who was galloping up and down Marquis Alley, four blocks from his home, firing a rifle. They arrested the youth without anyone being shot. Such was the reputation of Patrolman Kuenzel by 1910 that he was selected to be on the Exposition Detail, including the governor’s detail, for the tri-state’s Ohio Valley Exposition in September of that year.

To Mrs. Kuenzel his was a dangerous job and she desperately feared that he might die performing it. He provided her with more evidence during February 1912 when, about seven blocks from their home, he and Lieutenant Fisher stopped a runaway four-horse team and transfer wagon, saving numerous civilians lined up for street cars at Peeble’s Corner, but causing themselves considerable scrapes, bruises, and shredded uniforms.

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