Lionel Ainger Wiss had arrived in Queensland from Germany with his brothers, Campbell and Alfred, around 1887. They were German-born sons of English parents. After a short time in northern Queensland, Alfred returned to England and Lionel and Campbell moved to Ipswich, where they worked for grocers W Siemon & Sons for about three years.
In mid-1890 the brothers acquired an acre of land at Engelsburg, in the heart of the Fassifern Scrub district, south of Ipswich, which had been settled in the 1870s by immigrant German farmers. At this time, the township of Engelsburg comprised a general store, two saddlers, a cabinetmaker and glazier, a hotel and store, a butcher's shop, timber yard and blacksmith. The Engelsburg State School had been established in 1885. There were two Lutheran churches in the district, a Baptist church, a Primitive Methodist church, a Catholic church, and a small Salvation Army meeting hall. Much of the brigalow scrub had been cleared, and the surrounding district was dotted with small farm selections of 60, 80 or 120 acres.
On their Engelsburg property, adjacent to Heinrich Welge's Fassifern Hotel on the principal road from Ipswich to the Fassifern head station, the Wiss brothers erected a small store and adjacent dwelling. In August 1890, Ipswich architect Henry Edmund Wyman called tenders for a store and dwelling to be erected at Engelsburg, and by September 1890, a store for Lionel Wiss was being constructed there.
Lionel married Danish immigrant Maria Elise Wiuff at Ipswich in late 1890, and in the same year joined Campbell in partnership as Wiss Bros, storekeepers, at Engelsburg.
Wiss Bros was one of the earliest businesses in the town, which was emerging as a district centre following the closer settlement of the Fassifern Scrub for dairying and agriculture. Campbell Wiss had left the partnership by c.1904, but the name Wiss Bros was retained.
In 1903, their premises consisted of the small store and a separate dwelling fronting George Street, and bulk store and large stables at the rear. Lionel Wiss's property had been extended with the acquisition of an adjacent acre to the south in 1898, and a further adjoining 2 roods in 1901. When the new store was erected in 1909, the original store was moved a little to the north in George Street, and operated for many years as Surawski's Fassifern Cafe. In the 1980s this building was shifted to the Cunningham Highway.
The firm prospered and the new 1909 store (the present Wiss Emporium) quickly saw Wiss Bros became one of the most important businesses in the district.
Lionel ('Daddy') Wiss was a highly respected local identity, who took a prominent role in the community and the local Methodist church. In 1910, he acquired 56 acres in the centre of Engelsburg. About half of this he subdivided in 1916 into residential allotments, thereby creating most of the western half of the town of Engelsburg (renamed Kalbar in 1916 when the railway reached the town).
Despite owning acreage on the western side of George Street, when selecting a site for a more substantial family residence, Lionel Wiss chose four allotments in Annie Krause's 1912 residential subdivision of the eastern half of Engelsburg. The site at the corner of Ann and William Streets, on the small rise overlooking the township centre, was a prime location, and the house was amongst the first erected on the hill. This grand house, known as Wiss House is important in exhibiting a range of aesthetic characteristics valued by the local community, including the building's siting and its contribution through scale, form and materials, to the townscape of Kalbar and its rural setting, the quality of the building's timber work and pressed metal details and the quality of the building's interior layout and detailing, including the relationship of the principal room to the view of the town centre and beyond, and unpainted pine walls and cedar joinery.
Wiss House was previously owned by the present owner of the Wiss Emporium and Cottage complex and she was personally responsible for its extensive restoration to its former glory. Consequently it was also placed on the National Trust Register. Photo at left shows Kristine Markwell (Wiss Emporium) with award and flanked by Wiss family descendants at front left and front right.
Lionel Wiss died in 1932. His wife, Maria Elise, resided in the Ann Street house until her death in 1957, and his daughters Adeline and Phyllis remained there until the mid-1970s, when the property was sold.
Adeline ran Wiss Bros Emporium until the business was sold in 1947.
