Oshkosh Beer: An Illustrated History of the Oshkosh House Saloon and Hotel

Here was the scene in the 1890s on the north side of Ceape Avenue just east of State Street.

The wooden building was Edward Luhm's Oshkosh House Hotel and Saloon. It stood across the street from the current Oshkosh Convention Center. Luhm's place has long since been erased. There's nothing but parking lots there now....

That barren asphalt was once part of a roaring neighborhood crowded with saloons, cigar factories, and manufacturing plants. A railroad cut through it running down the middle of Ceape. In the midst of it all was the Oshkosh House...

A German language ad for the Oshkosh House in the Wisconsin Telegraph, October 10, 1884.

The roots of the Oshkosh House stretch back to May 1869 when a German immigrant named Anton Marheine bought the lot next door to Albert Sanford's blacksmith shop near the corner of Ceape and Shonaon (now State Street). Marheine was a Civil War vet and musician looking to get into the saloon business. He partnered with another German immigrant named August Brex and together they launched a beer hall on the property. The creatively named Marheine and Brex Saloon was born. It became one of more than 40 saloons then doing business in Oshkosh, population 12,000. This has always been a thirsty place.

From the 1869 Oshkosh City Directory.

Among the first things Marheine and Brex did was borrow a stack of cash (about $6,000 worth in today's money) from George Loescher, owner of the Oshkosh Brewery on what is now Bay Shore Drive. The money they took from Loescher is a good indication that Loescher's beer was the only kind you'd get at the Marheine and Brex stand. That's typically how these deals worked. And if that’s the case, this would have been among the earliest of tied houses in Oshkosh. In any case, the place was short lived.

Marheine and Brex were barely a year into their partnership when Marheine bailed out and sold the saloon to yet another German immigrant named Edward Luhm. Luhm and his new bride from Beaver Dam, Magdalena, took up residence at the saloon and proceeded to sell beer and have babies. They let out the remaining space to boarders.

The Ritz this was not. And it was not yet known as the Oshkosh House. There was, however, a small hotel then on South Main named the Oshkosh House. The Oshkosh House on Ceape wouldn't be born until a few years later after Luhm's Saloon had burned to the ground. Oshkoshers always seemed to be inspired by fire.

The fifth of Oshkosh's five great fires occurred on April 28, 1875. It ran from the Fox River, crossed over Main and tore east going all the way to Bowen. It took most everything in its path, including the Luhm's Saloon.

Path of the 1875 fire.

The Luhm's rebuilt and then expanded adding a proper hotel and dining room to go along with their beer hall. About 1883 they began calling it The Oshkosh House. Let's look again at that 1890s photo of the place.

The saloon was the portion on the left with the broad windows facing Ceape. The hotel expansion is at the right with a balcony on the second floor. Inside were bachelor flats. There was room for about 20 guests. Most of them were German immigrants who worked nearby. Cigar makers, bookbinders, blacksmiths, tanners, woodworkers... One of the boarders was Charles Maulick who would go on to launch what we know today as Oblio's Lounge. Room and board was $3.50 a week (about $90 in today's money).

From the 1884 Oshkosh City Directory.

The "commodious Barn" was for guests with horses, which were kept behind the hotel. This next image is from 1888 and shows the Oshkosh House stable. Today, it's hard to imagine that scenes like this were once common along Ceape...

Up next we have an 1885 map that presents a good overview of the entire layout of the Oshkosh House Hotel and Saloon. Notice the pig pen at the back of the lot. A little country comfort, right there in the middle of the city.

The Oshkosh House in 1885 at 29-33 Ceape.

Luhm's Oshkosh House also played host to its share of disorder over the years: The odd death of a mysterious stranger, the gassing of a guest, attempted suicide by laundry detergent, brawls... Typical stuff in rowdy Oshkosh back in the day. The Luhm's took it all in stride. Up to a point.

When fellow German expat William Streich began casting aspersions about the goings on at the Oshkosh House and the character of Missus Luhm, Magdalena and her brother – the cigar-making alderman Michael Goettmann – visited the Streich home and vigorously abused its occupants. The Daily Northwestern reported that the "matter caused a great sensation." Streich later sued Magdalena for $5,000 for the "permanent injuries" she inflicted upon his wife.

It wasn't all fun. In the fall of 1891, Edward Luhm was stricken with dropsy. His doctor treated him by draining several gallons of water from Luhm's body. That worked about as well as you might expect. Luhm died two days later on September 6, 1891. He was just 49 years old. Edward Luhm left a 39-year-old widow and three children.

Magdalena Luhm carried on. She became one of just a few women to run an Oshkosh saloon in the 1800s. She didn't always let on that she was in charge of the place. Here's an ad from 1902, published 11 years after her husband had died.

Magdalena Luhm sold the Oshkosh House in 1905. The new owner was John Hilt, one of the former bartenders there. Hilt was born on the North Atlantic Ocean in 1849 while his parents were in transit from their German homeland to a new life in the new world. After reaching adulthood, he worked as a farmer in Calumet County. Hilt gave that life up at the turn of the century and by 1903 was living in Oshkosh and tending bar at the Oshkosh House Saloon.

In the beginning, things appear to have gone quite well for Hilt at the Oshkosh House. So well, in fact, that sometime around 1912, he was able to entirely rebuild the place. The old, wooden hotel was picked up and moved to make way for something more modern. The next image shows the Oshkosh House being moved. Notice the signs on the saloon portion of the building. They’re hard to make out, but they appear to say Rahr Beer.

Hilt's new place was up to date and built and cast brick. Here's a picture of it from 1977...

Hilt stuck plenty into the construction of the new Oshkosh House, about $300,000 in today's money, and wound up with a hotel that probably wasn't worth the expense. This wasn't the kind of neighborhood that was going to attract travelers looking for a nice place to stay. The Oshkosh House was practically surrounded by smoke-belching manufacturing mills. Here's the look of the area from a couple of doors down at Ceape and Court streets, circa 1917.

Things went downhill for Hilt after he built the new place. In 1916 his wife died and shortly after Hilt put the Oshkosh House up for sale. He couldn't find a buyer. Then in 1920, Prohibition arrived and killed off his saloon business. Hilt made a go of it, but not for long. He died in early December 1922.

The Oshkosh House lingered on under a series of new owners, but the saloon that had started it all didn't return even after Prohibition ended in 1933. Beginning in the 1960s, the neighborhood lost most of its manufacturing plants and that stretch along Ceape went into a long, slow decline. The Oshkosh House turned into a flop house. One-by-one, the buildings around it met the wrecking ball. The Oshkosh House got its turn after the City of Oshkosh condemned the property in 1982.

Here's how it looked near the very end in 1981. Notice the abutting, white, wood-frame building with the two gables. It looks suspiciously similar to the hotel portion of the old Oshkosh House that Luhm built after the 1875 fire.