He painted the New Deal mural Wheat in the Shock in the Flandreau, South Dakota, post office.

He was also the nephew of the portrait painter Sister Cassiana Marie, who encouraged him to paint.

He owned the rooming house where the three founders of the colony, Aimee Schweig, Bernard E. Peters, and Jessie Beard Rickly, rented space.

Ziegler was interested in photography and used photographs to help compose his paintings as well as a way of documenting rural life in Ste.

[2] Ziegler won the commission for a mural for the Flandreau, South Dakota Post Office.