Louis Wartenberg
“In honor of the city’s 150th anniversary . . . officers can purchase a badge in the shape of a six-point star to wear for the rest of the year. They’re fashioned after the one worn by Marshal Louis Wartenberg, who was Anaheim’s top officer in the late 1870s.”
– The Orange County Register.
Louis Wartenberg was a coal miner who emigrated to the United States from Prussia.
Anaheim
Louis Wartenberg became the first Jewish Town Marshal in Anaheim when he was elected in March of 1877. He held the post until 1879.
- His many duties included tax collection, dog catching, stopping local boys from skinny dipping in the irrigation ditches, dealing with the occasional murder, and caring for and feeding his prisoners.
Wartenberg supplemented his income by operating a stage coach line between Anaheim and Los Angeles.
Wartenberg 150th Anniversary Badge; courtesy of the Orange County Register
Source
- “Anaheim’s First Jewish Law Enforcement Officer,” Western States Jewish History 44/3&4.
