This well known and representative business man and financier of Nez Perces County is today holding one of the most responsible offices within the gift of the people of the County, that of sheriff, and he is discharging the duties thus incumbent upon him with efficiency and a display of uprightness and wisdom.
Alfred W. was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 29, 1859, being the son of Adolph W. and Anna W. (Jacobs) Kroutinger. The father was a major in the regular army for thirty-five years; was born in 1830 and died in Idaho County, Idaho, in 1893. His ancestors were military men in Germany; he came to the United States, enlisted in the army and was retired in 1889. The mother was born in England on March 3, 1842, and came to the United States in infancy. Alfred was educated in the Chickering Institute, in Cincinnati, and the Washington University, in St. Louis.
In 1877, when our subject was twenty years of age, he came with his father, who had been ordered to quell the Nez Perces, to central Idaho. He at once began bookkeeping for John P. Vollmer & Company. Several years were spent in this labor and then he was selected as cashier for the First National Bank in Lewiston, and was later appointed receiver in the United States land office by President Cleveland, and served from 1892 to 1896. He was also deputy auditor and recorder from 1884 to 1888, and the last two years of this period he was city treasurer. In 1896 he acted as practicing attorney before the United States land office and continued in that capacity until 1900, when he received the nomination on the Democratic ticket for sheriff of Nez Perces County, and was elected. He is still filling that office in a creditable manner.
On May 3, 1881, in Lewiston, Mr. Kroutinger was married to Miss Anna E. Vollmer, a sister of John P. Vollmer, who had raised this sister after the death of her parents. Mrs. Kroutinger was born on November 11, 1864, at Indianapolis. Indiana; her brother and sister are as follows: J. P. Vollmer and Mrs. Corine Truscott. Mr. Kroutinger has no brothers or sisters. Our subject and his estimable wife have become the parents of one child, Anna L., who was nineteen years of age on January 15, 1902, is a graduate of the high school at Lewiston, and a very proficient musician.
Mr. Kroutinger is a member of the Masons. Scottish Rite Chapter, and has taken all the degrees in that order but one. He and his family affiliate with the Episcopal Church. Mr. Kroutinger is active in politics and is also a vigilant business man. He is in partnership with B. F. Morris, one of the best known men in Idaho, and they handle considerable real estate.
Source: An Illustrated History of North Idaho: Embracing Nez Perce, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone counties, state of Idaho; Western Historical Publishing Company, 1903