Maribor stories: Sherbaum's monkey

Karl Scherbaum was one of Maribor's most important entrepreneurs of the 19th century.

He was born in 1818 in Castle Street (Grajska ulica) and was considered to be a man who used every opportunity to make profit. Starting with a modest bakery, he began to expand his business in the mid-19th century, and soon one came across something related to the Scherbaum surname at virtually every step in Maribor. Of course, the reasons for such quick success were constant modernisation of his production plants and the implementation of various innovations. Mr. Scherbaum was definitely a man who kept abreast with the times, or was even a step or two ahead of them. In 1883, only four years after Edison's invention of the filament bulb, he introduced electric lighting with 36 bulbs in his steam mill in Castle Square (Grajski trg).

Yet history can be intriguing. Despite the fact Karl Scherbaum built several bakeries, steam mills, other buildings as well as introduced electric lighting to the city, he is most remembered for his monkey kept in a cage. To this day, older Mariborians will describe someone behaving a bit silly that “he or she behaves like Scherbaum's monkey«.