High-ranking German official delighted by Saxonburg
SAXONBURG — The excitement was palpable on Thursday as the highest ranking German official ever to visit Saxonburg enjoyed a tour of the borough that was founded almost 200 years ago by his countryman.
German Consul General David Gill traveled from New York City to visit the borough purchased, founded and laid out by John Augustus Roebling 190 yeas ago.
Gill traveled from the Pittsburgh International Airport to the office of the Butler County Commissioners, who treated the consul to lunch before he was driven to the Hotel Saxonburg, where he stayed on Thursday night.
After getting set up at the accommodations where one of Roebling’s visitors may have stayed in the 1830s, Gill eagerly accepted the offer by Mayor Bill Gillespie to drive the golf cart to the Saxonburg Museum at Roebling Park.
There, under the protection of borough police chief Joe Beachem and another officer, Gill heard a presentation by Fred Caesar, museum coordinator, that detailed Roebling’s trip to America, his purchase of the land that became Saxonburg, how he settled the borough and his famous invention of the wire rope that revolutionized bridge building and other industries.
Caesar gave Gill a tour of the museum’s surprising number of artifacts, focusing on those related to Roebling and the beginnings of the borough.
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