George W. Lininger was born in Chambersburg, Franklin county, Pennsylvania, December 14, 1834. at eleven years of age his parents moved to Peru, Illinois; his education was only such as could be obtained in the common schools of Pennsylvania and Illinois in those early days.
He began business for himself at Peru, at the age of twenty, by buying an interest in a stove and tinware store with $200. His business prospered until 1868, when he sold out and moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where, with E. L. Shugart, he engaged in the agricultural machinery and implement business.
In 1872 he moved to Omaha Nebraska. About a year later he bought out his partner and continued the business alone until 1879, when be sold out and took his family abroad. traveled the world researching masonic lore and history.
He had begun his Masonic career in 1856 and went on to become one of the most prominent Masons in the United States by the time of his death in 1908,
He heId the highest offices in the order in the States of Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska and was appointed Representative of the Grand Lodge of England to the Grand Lodge of the State of Nebraska,
He possessed the most complete Masonic library in the country by the start of the 20th century, The collection contained many of the earliest recorded proceedings of the English Grand Lodge.
It was Mr. Lininger's desire to study Masonry as it existed in the countries of Europe. This is the reason that first caused him to travel abroad. He eventually become a world traveler, his travels encompassed almost all of the known world and at every stop his primary objective was in search of Masonic lore and history.