A Toast to August Horn

August Horn

He was born in August, was named August and 106 years ago on Wednesday, August 17th he died. August Horn was the first president of the Oshkosh Brewing Company and the man who put Oshkosh beer on the map. Beginning in 1866, he took a small, thousand-barrel brewery and turned it into one of Wisconsin’s leading breweries. Not bad for a guy who started out laying brick.

Horn and Schwalm’s Brooklyn Brewery After 1879

August Horn was born on August 6, 1835 in Plößberg, Bavaria. In 1852, at the age of 17, he immigrated to Winnebago County with his parents Gottlieb and Barbara and began farming in the Town of Black Wolf. As a young man, Horn was trained as a stone mason and wasn’t involved with beer, aside from consuming it, until the age of 31. So how does a farming, stone mason find his way to making beer? By marrying into the family of a German brewer. In 1856 Horn married Amalia Schwalm, a relative of a brewer who had been trained in Saxony named Leonhardt Schwalm. In 1866 August and Leonhardt built a small, wooden brewhouse on the east side of Doty Street just south of what is now West 16th Avenue. They named it Horn and Schwalm’s Brooklyn Brewery.

A 1900 Composite of Oshkosh Brewing

The early years at the Doty Street Brewery must have been lively. It was truly a family operation. Both the Horn and Schwalm families lived above the brewery with their 15 kids. According to some reports, employees of the brewery often lived there, as well. Unfortunately, the house party came to an abrupt end when the home/brewery was swept away by fire in 1879. A new and larger brick brewhouse was quickly put up at the sight of the original brewery, but this one was strictly business. The families now lived in their own homes on separate, adjacent parcels. They were moving up in the world.

August Horn's Marker
at Riverside Cemetery
in Oshkosh

In 1894 the Horn and Schwalm Brewery merged with those of Lorenz Kuenzl and John Glatz to form the Oshkosh Brewing Company. Horn was made president of the new company and by the time of his death, Oshkosh Brewing had become the leading brewery in the area, capable of producing 90,000 barrels of beer a year.

August Horn died in 1904 from congestion of the kidneys at 10pm at his home at 1662 Doty Street. He was 69 years old at the time of his death and still president of Oshkosh Brewing. By all accounts he was a genial, well-liked member of the community. His obituary in Oshkosh Daily Northwestern described him as ”one of the most prominent German residents of the city and very highly respected.” This week, let’s raise a glass to August Horn.