Leopold Kabis was born in Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He emigrated to America with his family at age 14 on May 4th, 1860. They moved to Manitowoc Wisconsin, where the father Martin (also spelled Kabes) became a merchant.
Upon the completion of his primary studies Leopold moved to South Bend, Indiana where he enrolled and graduated from Notre Dame University. After graduation he became a shipping clerk for the US government during the Civil War. When the war ended in 1865 Leopold and his older brother George moved west, landing in Cheyenne on September 10, 1867. Cheyenne was then in the Dakota Territory and had been plotted as a township only two months earlier, around the point where the Union Pacific Railroad crossed Crow Creek. The railroad had declared this place was a suitable place for a stop, and thus Cheyenne was created.
By 1870 the brothers had opened a saloon in the rapidly expanding town. Leopold took up a friendship with Carrie A. Zehner, the daughter of a jeweler named Phillip, and the two were married by 1875. In around that year Kabis and 'a' Zehner started a brewery in town, and presumably sold their product in the saloon ran now by George. Whether the Zehner was the wife, the father-in-law or another relative I do not know.
The brewery operated until 1880 when it was taken over by Herbert Kimme, who ran it until anti-saloon pressures forced it closed in 1884.
Leopold returned to operating the saloon, which by the same pressures had now become a cafe. He moved into public service, serving as clerk to the city, then assessor, then State Senator, adjunct general, and finally US revenue collector. He died on the 18th of July, 1919 at 73 years of age.
