Lester A. Patterson was born December 24, 1841, near Alliance in Mahoning County, Ohio, where he was reared on his parents’ farm and remained until 1863. In 1865 he married Miss Melissa A. Kibler of Palmyra, Ohio. The following year he removed to Deerfield, Ohio, where he engaged in the manufacture of tow from flax straw, continuing in that line until 1873.

He then moved to Van Wert, Ohio, where he expanded his manufacturing interests and entered both wholesale and retail grocery business. His business acumen soon extended into banking, and he became a director of the First National Bank of Van Wert. He was also one of the incorporators and builders of the Cincinnati, Van Wert & Michigan Railway, a line that later developed into an important transportation system.

In 1881 Mr. Patterson relocated to Chicago, engaging in the boiler plate and strap iron jobbing trade. Two years later, in 1883, he came to Mankato, Minnesota. With associates largely from Van Wert, he helped construct the Mankato Gas Works, which subsequently developed into the Mankato Gas & Electric Light Company. He served as president and was one of its principal managers, playing a key role in bringing modern utility service to the growing city.

Soon after settling in Mankato, he laid plans to establish a wholesale grocery house. These plans were realized the following April with the erection of a substantial four-story business block. The enterprise became one of the largest and most successful wholesale grocery concerns in Minnesota. The Patterson-Hailhill-Zimmerman Grocery Company later evolved into the L. Patterson Mercantile Company, which was for many years managed by his sons.

Mr. Patterson was also a stockholder and director of the National Citizens’ Bank of Mankato, connected with the Hackney-Boynton Land Company, and established an additional wholesale grocery at Bismarck, North Dakota, which he personally supervised while his sons H. A. and Eugene L. managed the Mankato operation.

During World War I, his son Lester A. Patterson, Jr., served as a lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps (Aviation), further linking the family name with public service.

In his later years Mr. Patterson removed to Beverly Hills, California, where he resided for approximately twenty years. He died there in January 1924 at the age of eighty-two. Though he spent his final years in California, his body was returned to Mankato, and he was interred at Glenwood Cemetery on October 24, 1950.

Lester A. Patterson was widely recognized as one of the pioneer jobbers and industrial leaders of Minnesota. Through his leadership in utilities, wholesale trade, banking, rail development, and real estate, he played a significant role in the commercial expansion of Mankato and the surrounding region. His enterprises helped shape the city’s industrial foundation during a critical period of growth in the late nineteenth century.