William Leonard Albrecht was born in 1863 in Rothenburg, Germany, the son of Frederick A. and Sophia (Schmidt) Albrecht. He emigrated to the United States in 1882 and began working in Detroit, Michigan, as a bookkeeper. After six months there, he moved on to Minneapolis, where he worked for a firm that manufactured billiard tables and bank furniture. He left that firm and traveled throughout the Northwest looking for a location to start a business. In 1886 he arrived in Great Falls, Montana, where he opened the city's first furniture store.
In 1887, he built the brick building that would house the store for the next eighty-one years. Albrecht's Furniture sold a whole variety of furnishings for the home. The store often struggled with varying financial conditions, but stayed in business at 111 Central Avenue East until 1968.
Albrecht was active in other business concerns as well. He was a director, vice president, and president of the Gold Black Sand Mining Company, which was headquartered in Great Falls. He was also active in the German-American community, and was a member of the Sons of Hermann (which published the Montana Herold, a German newspaper, out of Great Falls from 1892 to 1898) and the German Lodge of Great Falls. He was a minor stockholder in the Cascade and Bitter Root Lumber Company.
Albrecht married Wilhelmine Loeffler in Chicago in 1894. They had three children: William Jr., Helmuth, and Elsie. William Sr. died in 1935; William Jr. owned and managed the store until its closure in 1968; he died in 1975.
From the guide to the William Leonard Albrecht Papers, 1880-1968, (University of Montana--Missoula Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library Archives and Special Collections)
