Saloons of the Old West Side

It used to be called the West Side. But that name was lost 50 years ago. Also lost is the social life that thrived there. The heart of the old West Side – often called West Algoma – ran along Oshkosh Avenue from the Fox River to Fox Street. Even the street names are not what they were. What’s left is a stripped patch of land. Here’s a glimpse at what no longer exists…

Looking west down the 1200 block of Oshkosh Avenue, circa 1951.

Here is what it became...

The street names and addresses of the old West Side have changed over the years. For the sake of clarity, I’ll use the current street names and addresses in this post.

When that 1950s picture was taken, the old West Side was already old. Webster Stanley had set up his shanty nearby in 1836. Stanley’s shanty was at the landing of a ferry that had been carrying folks across the river since 1831. The ferry was replaced by a floating bridge in 1850. By then, the West Side had its first saloon. The bar was in the Eagle Hotel near the corner of Oshkosh Avenue and Fox Street.

An 1867 illustration of the West Side. The tall building at the center is the Eagle Hotel.

The West Side saloon scene bloomed in the early 1900s. It coincided with the arrival of immigrants from Russia. People here called them Rooshins. They were ethnic Germans whose ancestors had migrated to Russia’s Volga River Valley in the 18th century. A century later, they were hounded out. Hundreds of them headed for the West Side, where they established a colony that blended their folkways into the stew of Oshkosh.

The Rooshins were outsiders. Their dialect, their customs, and their clothes set them apart. They were considered foreign even by others of German ancestry. Their cultural isolation was compounded by their location. They were separated from the South Side by Sawyer Creek, and from the North Side by the Fox River. In typical Oshkosh fashion, the inevitable integration was fostered by saloons. It began with a saloon built in 1897 by Miller Brewing at the northeast corner of Oshkosh and Fox.

The tall building on the right is the saloon built by Miller Brewing as it appeared in 1920. On the left is the same building in the 1990s.

The Miller place was run by two West Siders: Lew Rickard and Lew Schwanske. The neighbors called it the LuLu Saloon. The LuLu did well enough, but it prospered after Louis W. Tyriver took it over in 1901. LW Tyriver was 41 years old and born in America. His parents were German immigrants. He’d been working at Paine Lumber and living on the West Side before going behind the bar at the Miller Brewery Saloon. He was there when the Volga Germans arrived. Tyriver’s saloon became the West Side’s first home away from home.

September 9, 1901.

Tyriver’s success caught the attention of the Oshkosh Brewing Company (OBC). Oshkosh’s largest brewery wasn’t about to concede its home turf to a saloon owned by Miller. In September 1902, OBC bought the vacant lot at the southwest corner of Oshkosh and Sawyer. The brewery announced it would put a saloon there. LW Tyriver responded in kind. He bought the empty lot kitty corner to OBC’s new property. The race was on.

An early 1903 map with the proposed sites of Tyriver’s saloon (green rectangle) and the Oshkosh Brewing Company saloon (blue rectangle).

OBC brought in a veteran South Side saloon keeper named “Happy” John Wawrzinski to launch its new bar. But Tyriver beat OBC and Happy John to the punch. Tyriver opened his new saloon in the second week of March 1903. Happy John's opened three weeks later. Each was a showcase saloon. They looked like mirror images of one another. Their turrets were the gateway to the burgeoning West Side.

This photo from the early 1950s, shows the gateway to the West Side. The saloon on the right was built by Louis W. Tyriver. It later became Repp’s Bar. The saloon on the left was the Oshkosh Brewing Company saloon run by Happy John Wawrzinski. It later became Gordy’s Bar.

 Inside the saloon built by OBC and run by Happy John Wawrzinski. Happy John stands behind his bar wearing a bow tie and white apron.

Happy John spent the next 30 years behind that bar. His name would remain attached to the tavern until 1950. LW Tyriver was never so settled. In 1905, Tyriver sold his new saloon to Pabst Brewing. He ran the place for three more years and then jumped into a new set of West Side adventures.

Outside the saloon Tyriver built and sold to Pabst. This photo was taken circa 1909 when it was operated by Clemens Hintzke. This saloon later became Repp’s Bar.

There were now three brewery-owned saloons in the 1200 block of Oshkosh Avenue. A fourth was added in 1912. Rahr Brewing of Oshkosh bought the open lot at 1226 Oshkosh Avenue in September 1911. The brewery built a saloon with an upper apartment and an attached storefront. The new Rahr barroom was outfitted with an oak bar and back bar built by Robert Brand and Sons of Oshkosh.

Brand and Son’s “The Grant” model, installed in the Rahr saloon in 1912.

Joe Riedy, who had been a bartender at the Miller Brewery saloon on the corner, moved a couple doors east to run the Rahr bar. He called it the Center Buffet. Riedy and his wife, May, lived upstairs. A barbershop went into the attached storefront. For 30 cents, you could get a trim and a frothing mug of Rahr beer. The photo below was taken almost 100 years after the saloon was built. The large windows at street level were boarded over by then.

1226 Oshkosh Avenue, circa 2007.

LW Tyriver left the Pabst saloon, but he hadn’t left the neighborhood. In 1911, he ran for alderman of the 12th Ward representing the West Side. Tyriver won in a landslide. The expense report he filed with the city showed that he spent $32.40 on his campaign. All of it but $2.40 went for beer and cigars. Tyriver was a single-issue politician. He was fed up with the rickety bridge that crossed the Fox River to the West Side. Tyriver made a nuisance of himself at common council meetings until he got what he wanted.

The new bridge over the Fox River built in 1912.

There had been problems at the Pabst saloon ever since Tyriver left. The trouble started with young Clemens Hintzke. He was 23 when he began running the bar in 1909. Hintzke had a special friend, a much-discussed woman named Lorena Dyer. There were allusions that Dyer was involved in sex trafficking. The connection led to Hintzke’s name being dragged through the mud. Dyer was with Hintzke when his persistent tuberculosis flared up on a January evening in 1911. Hintzke had a coughing fit that killed him. His family members stepped up to keep the saloon open. But the relentless bickering of his parents made the place no fun. Pabst booted the entire crew in early 1912. The brewery wanted LWT back.

Tyriver returned for a short stint at the Pabst saloon. But he had no intention of remaining a publican for a Milwaukee brewery. In February 1914, Tyriver bought an empty lot across the street from Happy John’s OBC saloon. By the summer of 1914, the beer was flowing at Tyriver’s new bar. The four other saloons on the block were owned by breweries. Tyriver’s independent status was confirmed by the beer he sold. It was from the independent Oshkosh brewery that had opened the previous summer.

August 29, 1914, the grand opening of Tyriver’s new saloon with beer from Peoples Brewing.

Louis W. Tyriver was entwined in the social life of the West Side. His saloons were an entry point into the new world for Oshkosh’s Volga Germans. The connection deepened in 1915. Tyriver bought the building next to his saloon and converted the upper floor into LWT Hall, a space for neighborhood gatherings. It was where the West Side held its dances, political rallies, meetings, weddings, and any other assembly uniting the community.

Tyriver’s LWT Hall is the white building at the center of the photo. His saloon was the smaller building next door on the left.

There were five saloons in the 1200 block of Oshkosh Avenue in 1919. There was a grocery store, a meat market, a barber shop, a candy store, a shoe store, and a drug store. It was the West Side’s Main Street. A year later, the community was betrayed by a minority of rank bigots who forced through the first constitutional amendment aimed at restricting personal liberty. The betrayal was Prohibition. The cruelest provisions of the dry law were aimed directly at immigrants and the working class. Folks like those of the old West Side.

I’ll post the next chapter of this story here next Sunday.

A word of thanks to Dan Radig who helped with a number of pictures used in this post.

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