From Prohibition to Players

The tavern at the northeast corner of Fifth and Ohio turned 50 years old when Prohibition ended in 1933. But nobody there was celebrating the past. The last 13 years had been the worst. The endless raids and arrests came to a head with a gruesome stabbing death. All of that was put away. The time had arrived for a new beginning.

The headline above the image is from December 4, 1933.

A New York transplant named Ed Hall was running the bar in 1933. Those who came before him at Fifth and Ohio were either native Southsiders or part of the German-speaking immigrant community that had seeded it. Hall fit in, nonetheless. He joined Sacred Heart Church and softened the tavern’s rough reputation. Hall was there only six years. But in that time, he recast the tavern, making it family-friendly with an emphasis on dining and games. The place was back on track when Hall split in early 1938.

Katie Werner owned the property. She had bought it with her husband, Adolph, in 1922. Adolph was killed in 1931, but Katie and her children were still living in the apartment at the north end of the building. Katie wanted out of there. She put the property on the market, and in the meantime, leased the bar to a Sixth Warder named Frank Penzenstadler. Katie found a buyer a couple years later.  

THE HOUR
The bar at Fifth and Ohio became Harry Witt’s Hour Tavern. This was not the first Hour Tavern in Oshkosh. And Harry Witt was not the real name of the man behind it.

He was Harry G. Witkowski, born in Menasha in 1909 to Polish-speaking immigrants. He grew up working in his father’s butcher shop. When his father died in 1928, the shop went to 19-year-old Harry. A few days later, Harry married an Oshkosh woman named Lucy Radtke. Harry quit the meat business, left Menasha and moved to the Sawdust City.

Harry spent four, fitful years working for other people. Such was not for him. In 1934, he leased an old and storied saloon called the Fisherman’s Tavern at the northeast corner of 6th and Michigan. He and Lucy already had three kids, all boys: Jerome, James, and Andrew. The whole crew moved into the apartment above the bar.

The original Hour Tavern (since demolished) with an announcement for its opening, August 25, 1934.

Harry “Lefty” Witt revived the place, but he remained a renter. The Drumm family owned the property. They ran a saloon and then a speakeasy there until Gustave Drumm died in 1926. The Drumms didn’t want to sell. So Witt looked for someone who did. He found Katie Werner and the tavern at Fifth and Ohio.

Harry and family moved to Fifth and Ohio and took the Hour Tavern name with them. On April 8, 1940, he paid Katie Werner $2,700 (about $62,000 today) for the privilege of owning a bar. The low price reflected its condition. The place was beat. Witt spent the next 18 months remodeling the tavern and repairing the building. By December 1941, he had what he wanted.

December 6, 1941.

Witkowski had picked up where Ed Hall left off. He installed a long bar, inserted a full dining room, and spent thousands on updates. The investment was rewarded. By the mid-1940s, The Hour ranked among the most popular Southside taverns. Harry Witt was known to everyone.

Harry “Witt” Witkowski 

Harry inducted his sons Fritz (James) and Jerry (Jerome) into the business. Then he began casting about for opportunities to expand. In 1958, they opened a second location in Menasha called the Hour Grill. The boys took over in Oshkosh. Harry ran the Menasha place.

An October 1958 ad for the Hour Grill in Menasha.

Running two businesses was more trouble than it was worth. The Menasha Hour went up for sale in 1961. Harry returned to Oshkosh. He was at The Hour on New Year’s Day 1966, when he had a massive heart attack and died. Harry Witkowski was 56 years old.

Jerry Witt took over the tavern and began building onto it. A 1968 addition cost him more than $12,000 (about $115,000 today). Jerry continued the remodeling through the coming decade. The facelifts, one after another, expanded the facility and concealed the age of what was now a 90-year-old tavern.

Early 1970s.

It looked good, but the foundation was weakening. In 1975, Jerry was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of tax evasion. He said it was a “mechanical error” and was acquitted after the IRS was unable to prove intent. Then in the summer of 1979, he had a heart attack. He was just 46. Jerry survived, but it led him to pull back.

Jerome “Jerry Witt” Witkowski

TONY'S PLACE
There were mortgages on the property totalling $210,000 (almost $700,000 today) when Jerry sold The Hour in 1983. William Downie, a Wautoma investor hoping to flip the property, took it off his hands. Downie sold it to Merle and Geraldine Adams in October 1985. They closed the tavern the following summer and put it up for sale. And there it sat.

January 30, 1988.

Jerry Becker bought it in March 1988. Becker was the area manager for MRI Development Corp. The MRI portfolio included several Oshkosh restaurants and taverns, including Mars Hamburgers, Baxter’s on High, and Mr. Lucky’s (now Molly McGuire's). Becker lived in Ripon, but was born in Oshkosh and said he wanted the tavern for sentimental reasons. “My parents ate at the Hour Bar every Friday night,” he said. The Hour became J.B.’s Hour Bar in July 1988.

Jerry Becker cutting a ribbon of dollar bills at the July 1988 reopening.

All that turnover was damaging to a business built on its connection to the neighborhood. And the corporatized redirection was at odds with what the place had always been about. By July 1989, The Hour was on the verge of bankruptcy. So Becker leased the tavern to TP Enterprises Inc. Richard Backus of TP Enterprises was also a director of MRI Development Corp. The final break with the past came when they renamed the tavern. At the end of July 1989, it became Tony’s Place.

Jerry Becker stayed on as manager and took to looting the business. Becker skimmed the tavern’s receipts, swindling about $65,000 a year. He also stopped paying the mortgage. F&M Bank took the property in 1994 and then leased it to him. Becker continued his grift until he finally quit Tony’s Place in November 1996. He was later convicted of tax fraud and jailed. Rumors of the tavern’s demise were received as fact.

PLAYERS
In May 1997, F&M Bank sold the property to a quartet of brothers with deep, Southside roots. They reopened the tavern as Players Pizza and Pub. Al, Carl, Dean, and Steve Sosnoski were second-generation Americans. Their grandparents had migrated from Poland and Austria and arrived on the Southside of Oshkosh around 1904. The brothers were even cousins to Adolph Werner, the dry-law refusnik who ran a speakeasy in the tavern they had just purchased. The Sosnoski brothers may not have realized it, but the tavern at Fifth and Ohio was part of their lineage.

Brothers Steve, Al, Dean, and Carl Sosnoski, circa 1997.

The tavern’s new manager had a Sixth Ward pedigree even more directly connected to its tavern culture. The Sosnoskis hired Carla Nigl, whose grandfather Alois Nigl launched Nigl’s Saloon at the northeast corner of 9th and Ohio in 1897. Carla had co-managed that bar in the late 1970s. At Players, she said, “We’re just trying to keep all of the positive things that were here before and trying to make it a family place.”

Carl Sosnoski and Carla Nigl, 2022.

The Sosnoski brothers had 25 years at Players. They moved on after the death of Steve Sosnoski in November 2021. Tim Murray took over. He had previously owned Murray’s Irish Pub at 107 Algoma. Murray purchased the Players property in June 2022 and remains the owner under the banner of the Murray Hospitality Group. He currently runs two other restaurants, Murray’s Irish Pub and Pirates Cove, both in Menominee, Michigan.

This happened on August 12, 2026…

Nobody was hurt. The flames ripped through the interior and burned through the roof. Murray responded quickly, saying that the property can and will be saved. “It will be better than ever with the same feel and vibe,” he said. Initially, the fire was said to have been caused by an electrical connection in the HVAC system. The Oshkosh Fire Department has since designated the cause of the fire as "undetermined."

October 12, 2026.

That tavern is now 143 years old. It’s come back from the brink before. Maybe that can happen again.

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This is the third in the three part series covering the history of this tavern from its inception in 1883 through 2026. Here are links to the earlier posts…

     Part 1: The Genealogy of Players

     Part 2: A Sixth-Ward Mutiny 

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Get Notified: Email me at OshkoshBeer@gmail.com to receive an email notification when I publish a new post. Your email address will not be shared or sold.

A Sixth-Ward Mutiny

Here’s a photo of Players Pub & Pizza taken in May, 2025. One hundred years earlier, this place epitomized the Southside's unwavering rejection of the dry law.

Prohibition began on January 17, 1920. On that day, the saloon at the northeast corner of 5th and Ohio sat empty. That’s how it was supposed to be. Prohibition wasn’t just about abolishing liquor. It was equally about exterminating saloons. But the dry victory at that corner was short-lived. The old tavern sprang back to life three weeks after Prohibition began.

Alfred Berndt had jumped into the void. He was a 27-year-old Southsider and son of a tugboat captain. Berndt had been bouncing from job to job and partying hard before he leased the vacant saloon. He remade the old place into a speakeasy with an underworld flair. It was now a jazz hall called the Wisconsin Club. Berndt burned hot and burned out. He was out of there by the end of June 1921.

The Oshkosh-based Erv Pfeiffer Jazz Orchestra played the Wisconsin Club on February 16, 1920.

Werner’s Oasis
The new guy was Southside bona fide. Adolph Werner was born in Bohemia in 1888. He was replanted at 12th and Rugby at age 10. Czech was his mother tongue. Werner grew up in a neighborhood teeming with young, untutored toughs who later became the pioneers of Southside bootlegging.

Like a lot of those boys, Adolph was finished with school by the time he was 11. He found himself cutting wood for coffins at Buckstaff. His childhood labor was probably necessitated by the Werner family’s need for money. His father, Isadore, worked at Paine Lumber for starvation wages. There were 10 mouths to feed at the Werner home. They needed every penny they could get.

The Buckstaff-Edwards mill in the 1100 block of South Main, where Adolph Werner worked as a boy.

At 18, Adolph married Katie Stini, a Sixth-Ward inhabitant of Bohemian descent. A son arrived eight months later. After that, the kids kept coming; another almost every year. Adolph’s life was unwinding like a dreary echo of Isadore’s. By 1919, Katie had given birth to eight children, and Adolph was working at Paine Lumber. Just like his father.

The home where Adolph and Katie Werner lived with their children in 1919 still stands at 7th & Idaho.

Adolph Werner wanted something more than the drab toil he seemed fated for. Drudgery may have been what led him to form the Lyric Athletic Club. Its goal was to bring together Southside working men interested in literature and athletics. An unusual undertaking for a guy from Adolph’s neighborhood. But that was just a diversion. When Prohibition began, he saw an opportunity for the unconditional escape he longed for.

Adolph Werner was 33 in the summer of 1921. Prohibition had been in place for just a year. But already it was obvious that Oshkosh would never go dry. The reformers had made a colossal blunder, and Werner’s boyhood friends were making the most of it. Among them was Frank Kinderman, whom Adolph had known since childhood. Kinderman had launched a moonshine distillery on his frog farm near 10th and Knapp. He came to symbolize the bootleggers' reckless freedom.

Frank Kinderman with his modified Ford Model T Runabout, circa 1921.

Kinderman was at the center of a Southside liquor network. Most of his cohorts were in their early 30s and embedded in the Sixth-Ward Highholder community of Bavarian/Bohemian immigrants. All of them were familiar with Adolph Werner. Some were making booze; others were selling it. Adolph joined on the retail side. On August 2, 1921, he took out a $50 soft-drink license for the speakeasy Berndt had just vacated at 5th and Ohio.

It was the start of a new life. Katie was pregnant, and Adolph was free of the lumber mills. But federal agents quickly discovered Adolph’s connection to Kinderman. On the Friday evening of January 6, 1922, the feds raided Kinderman's distillery and then went after people linked to him. Adolph was pouring moonshine when the dry squad came through his door. Five months and four days into his emancipation, Adolph Werner found himself in jail.

Saturday morning, they brought Adolph into court and made him wait. The docket was filled with Prohibition violation cases. He was still waiting to be called when Katie went into labor. Adolph eased out of the courtroom, unnoticed. Katie gave birth to a boy they named Stanley, and on Monday morning, Adolph turned himself in. Back in court, he pleaded guilty. They gave him two options: a fine or 90 days in jail. He took the fine, $250 (about $5,000 today). Adolph paid up and went home. You can bet he didn’t have that kind of money in his pocket when he worked for Paine Lumber.

The Killing Floor
There was no turning back. The Werners were living in the apartment on the north end of the building. And when the property went up for sale, they jumped at the chance to buy it. Pabst Brewing had owned the building since 1905 and leased it as a tied house before Prohibition. The dry law killed that, and now Pabst wanted out. And quickly. The brewery offered the place to Adolph at a bargain price, $3,000 (about $60,000 today). On April 7, 1922, Adolph signed a deal with Pabst to purchase the property. A week later, Oshkosh flooded.

Fifth and Ohio during the great flood of 1922. Adolph Werner’s speakeasy was in the white building. Across the street was the Sebora grocery store.

Fifth and Ohio, May 2025.

Flooding was the least of their problems. On March 7, 1923, Adolph and Katie’s 13-year-old son, Andrew, was hit by a streetcar at 9th and Idaho. The boy was killed instantly. He was the second child they had lost to a grisly death. A decade earlier, their two-year-old son, Alfred, burned to death in a fire he had started while playing at his grandmother's house.

Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, March 8, 1923.

Sympathy was hard to come by for moonshine dealers in 1923. The 1922 raids and fines did nothing to dissuade Frank Kinderman and his associates from their illegal enterprise. The feds came back, trying to take down the syndicate piece by piece. They got Adolph again on August 22, 1923. The Wednesday night raid turned up moonshine concealed in a water cooler. Adolph pleaded guilty for the second time.

Judge Arthur Goss, whose court had turned into a turnstile for Kinderman associates, showed no pity either. Adolph was slammed with a $500 fine and six months in the county jail. Goss told Adolph he’d give him another four months behind bars if he couldn’t come up with the money by the end of his sentence. Adolph came up with money. But running a speakeasy from a jail cell was a more complicated matter.

A Fishy License
Adolph was locked up, but his speakeasy was not. He transferred the license to Charles Hering, a 31-year-old Southsider connected to the Kinderman syndicate. Hering took over behind the bar, but Adolph called the shots. Anyone with a passing interest could see through the smokescreen. The shuffle certainly didn’t fool Prohibition officials.

Adolph was out of jail by the spring of 1924. He took a job at Badger Lumber. Kinderman had connections there and might have gotten him in. It was back to the grind. But for now, he needed to steer clear of his bar. Another conviction could land him in jail for years, not months. So for now…

The Badger Lumber plant on Campbell Road where Adolph worked in 1924.

It was good that he stayed away. The speakeasy was again raided shortly after Adolph’s release from jail. Charles Hering was there when the agents barged in. Hering dumped the jar of moonshine he'd been holding into the barroom sink. That didn’t keep him from being arrested.

Here’s where this story takes a puzzling turn. Charles Hering’s court date was set for May 14, 1924. The state’s principal witnesses were Prohibition agents. They decided to skip the trial. The case was dismissed. The speakeasy was raided again in August of 1924. This time, Adolph was there. It was his third arrest for a dry-law violation. But his case was dismissed before the trial date was even set. No explanation was given.

This period swims with allegations of officials on the take. Had Adolph bought protection? This timeframe also coincides with Clark Perry, of Oshkosh, taking over as the state’s Prohibition Chief. The remarkably corrupt Perry was booted out of office in 1926 and sent to prison. The following year, Adolph Werner was back in the crosshairs.

Clark Perry

Charles Hering moved to Portland after his case was dropped. Adolph couldn’t get the city to renew the soft-drink license in his own name, so he transferred it to Jordan Kodanko. He worked at Paine Lumber and appears to have been associated with the speakeasy solely for the sake of the permit. Kodanko backed out after Werner’s August 1924 arrest. Next came Mathias Matsche. He’d been working at a speakeasy (now the B & E Lounge) on Oregon Street and was also involved with a Southside moonshine plant run by his brother Frank. But Matt Matsche didn’t last either.

In January 1926, Adolph Novotny signed his name to the license. Novotny was from the old neighborhood and a veteran of the Kinderman syndicate. And he had the arrest record that went with it. But Novotny was just another stopgap. Finally, in July 1926 – having gone almost two years without an arrest – Werner convinced the licensing committee that he was now worthy of a permit. Then he got busy proving them wrong.

Werner was shot down when he came up for license renewal in June 1927. Chief of Police Arthur Gabbert interceded, claiming the Werner place was as lawless as ever. The spat dragged on until Werner lost. But he did not concede. He replaced his soft drinks with ice cream and claimed he was now running an ice cream parlor. No license required. The maneuver endeared him to exactly no one involved with Prohibition enforcement.

A Bust
Frank B. Keefe was sworn in as Winnebago County District Attorney on January 3, 1927. For the six previous years, he’d been an Oshkosh defense attorney representing bigshot bootleggers and speakeasy keepers. Now he was on the other team, exploiting his inside information to make a name for himself as a dry-law crusader. Frank Kinderman was one of the first of Keefe’s former clients taken down.

Frank B. Keefe

Adolph Werner was on Keefe’s short list. In the fall of 1927, Keefe set up a sting operation aimed at the 5th and Ohio speakeasy. At the center of the entrapment was an informant Keefe hired named Henry Repp (his younger brother, Alvin, opened Repp’s Bar in 1943).

Henry Repp walked into Adolph’s speakeasy at about 5 pm on Saturday, November 5, 1927. It wasn’t his first visit. Repp had been coming in for the past few days. Adolph and Katie were in the barroom with several men behind mugs of beer. Repp put 15 cents on the bar and ordered a beer. When Adolph served him, Repp put a quarter on the bar and asked for a shot of moonshine. Adolph served him. Repp drank up.

Another man came in. A deputy sheriff in plain clothes named Edward Below. Katie sensed that something was wrong. She left the barroom and took the connecting hallway to their apartment. Moments later, the bar phone rang. At the same time, one of Adolph’s sons entered the barroom from the hallway. Deputy Below noted Adolph’s agitation upon taking the call. Adolph handed his son a jar filled with liquid. The boy raced out of the barroom and back down the hallway. Deputy Below called out. The raid was on.

The layout at 5th and Ohio. 1) The speakeasy’s main bar room. 2) The connecting hallway. 3) The Werner family apartment.

Winnebago County Sheriff Walter Plummer burst in with Undersheriff Leroy Hahn behind him. Deputy Below took off down the hallway after the kid. Plummer went directly to Adolph and showed him a search warrant. Plummer and Hahn began rooting around and quickly discovered several cases of bootleg beer.

Deputy Below returned from his chase down the hall with two quarts of moonshine. He told Plummer he’d found Katie in the apartment, about to dump the booze into the kitchen sink. Adolph didn’t realize that Henry Repp was part of the takedown. He confided in Repp, saying that he knew he was finished. He was convinced he’d get a lengthy jail term.

From the court transcripts of Adolph’s 1927 trial.

Adolph hired Richard Curtis “Romeo” Laus to represent him. He could not have chosen a better lawyer. The 31-year-old Laus was itching for this fight. A year earlier, he had lost to Keefe in the race for Winnebago County District Attorney. In court, the animosity was unmistakable, with Laus relentlessly antagonizing Keefe.

R. Curtis Laus

What Laus did to Keefe was nothing compared to his dismantling of the state's chief witnesses: Henry Repp, Deputy Edward Below, and Sheriff Walter Plummer. Repp suffered a reputational thrashing, with Laus taunting Repp about his drinking and his alleged participation in the Ku Klux Klan. Laus then went after Below and Plummer. He made them appear incompetent. The county cops had given him plenty to work with.

On the night of the raid, Plummer decided not to bother with the bootleg beer they found. He didn’t even have it tested for alcohol. Plummer figured the moonshine was all they needed. So the entire case rested on that slice of evidence… and the search warrant.

The warrant listed the speakeasy’s Fifth Avenue address. But that’s not where Deputy Below found the moonshine. The apartment, where he caught Katie with the booze, had an Ohio Street address. Laus argued that the search warrant didn’t extend to the apartment, and therefore Deputy Below’s search of it was illegal. The court agreed. The evidence was tossed out. The case against Adolph Werner fell apart.

Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, January 10, 1928.

Adolph walked free. His accusers walked into shit storms. Henry Repp, outed as a snitch, was harassed and attacked on the street. Later accusations of rape and dog killing only enhanced his toxic repute. For Plummer, it was worse.

A scandal erupted during Adolph’s trial. D.A. Frank Keefe had learned that Sheriff Walter Plummer was conspiring with bootleggers and sex workers who paid him for protection. Keefe went public with the information. An outpouring of torrid allegations ensued. The evidence against Plummer included notes from a companion’s “love diary” describing beer parties and orgies in the county jail. Walter Plummer was removed from office on March 30, 1928.

The Dark Passage
Adolph returned to the speakeasy and carried on. A period of unusual calm ensued. After five raids in five years, 5th and Ohio was never again raided. And by 1931, it was clear to anyone with any sense that Prohibition had to be repealed. The day was coming when taverns would be legal. Adolph Werner never saw that day.

On the Thursday evening of January 8, 1931, Adolph and Katie were at their apartment with a couple of friends they’d invited in for a dinner of dove stew. Ernest and Mary Kuehn were Sixth Warders. Ernest Kuehn worked in a lumber mill and supplemented his income by making moonshine. Mary was Katie’s cousin.

Adolph liked to tease Mary. He was at it that Thursday night. Mary was giving it back to him. She threw a shoe at him. She hit him with a broom. Adolph kept at her, keeping her from her stew. There was bread on the table and a butcher knife to slice it. Mary picked up the knife and waved it playfully at Adolph. He ran out of the kitchen, into the hallway, and towards the speakeasy. Mary followed him out, knife in hand. In the dark passageway, she didn’t see Adolph turn around and come back to her. The knife plunged into his belly. All the way to the handle. At least, that’s the story they told.

Adolph was bleeding out. They rushed him to Mercy Hospital. He was going into shock. A doctor stabilized him and prepped him for surgery. The police arrived, and Adolph told them it was all a mistake. That they were only "fooling around." Adolph Werner, age 42, died the following morning at 7 am. District Attorney Frank Keefe, who had prosecuted Adolph after his 1927 arrest, decided to forgo an inquest. It was all wrapped up and put away within a matter of hours.

Adolph’s widow, Katie Werner (right), with her sister Mary Meyer, circa 1934.

Katie never closed the speakeasy. Her 23-year-old son, Edward, left his job driving an ice wagon and went behind the bar. It wasn’t to his liking. He quit six months later. Katie then leased the bar to Paul Fabrycki who’d been working at a speakeasy/billiard parlor at what is now 611 Oregon. Fabrycki didn’t stay either. In 1932, Ed Hall signed on and stayed. Hall was there when Prohibition finally ended in 1933.

Wieners and Rahr’s Beer at Ed Hall’s Bar, November 11, 1933.

Katie Werner remained in the attached apartment and maintained her ownership of the tavern until 1940. In 1950, she married Ernest Kuehn, the widower of the woman who accidentally killed Adolph Werner with a butcher knife. Katie died in 1975. She was buried in the Werner family plot next to Adolph.

Riverside Cemetery

Adolph Werner's signature.

This is the second in the three part series covering the history of this tavern from its inception in 1883 through 2026. Here are links to each of the posts…

Part 1: The Genealogy of Players

Part 2: A Sixth-Ward Mutiny 

Part 3: From Prohibition to Players 

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Get Notified: Email me at OshkoshBeer@gmail.com to receive an email notification when I publish a new post. Your email address will not be shared or sold.

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The Genealogy of Players

Player's Pizza & Pub caught fire on the evening of August 12, 2026. It burned into the early morning. The building at the northeast corner of 5th and Ohio was nearly destroyed.

After the fire, several news reports made token references to the significance of this place. One of them called Players a “decades-old gathering spot.” That was about as specific as it got.

​“Decades-old” is an extraordinary understatement. Players has a lineage stretching across three centuries. It began as one of the foundational saloons of the old Sixth Ward. There’s a lot of Southside culture tied up in that damaged building.

Wolter’s Bar and Grocery
It began 143 years ago with a Bohemian immigrant named August Wolter. On September 8, 1883, Wolter paid $700 (about $23,500 today) for Lots 13 and 14 in Block 95 in the Plat of the Original Third Ward. The plat name was already outdated. The Original Third Ward had encompassed almost all of the land south of the Fox River. But in 1871 the ward was divided. Everything west of Minnesota Street went into the newly minted Sixth Ward.

An 1886 map with a red highlight showing the location of the Sixth Ward land Wolter purchased in 1883. The area was sparsely developed and etched by railroad tracks. The segment of Ohio Street next to Wolter’s property was as narrow as an alleyway.

A small home was all that stood near that corner when August Wolter got there. Wolter came to America in 1872 when he was 21. He wasted no time. Before the year ended, Wolter had found a wife. A German fresh off the boat named Augusta Josephine Neubauer. They went to Weyauwega and settled on a farm that held them for almost a decade.

When the Wolters returned to Oshkosh, they had four kids and enough for a down payment on the property at 5th and Ohio. Again, the Wolters worked quickly. They built a two-story structure that hugged the corner and outfitted it with a saloon and grocery. The opening date is lost. They may have been in business before the close of 1883. But by the spring of 1884, the Wolters most definitely had their two ventures up and running. They would be at that corner for the next 20 years.

From the 1884 Oshkosh City Directory. The Wolter’s residence at 276 Fifth was the original street address for what is now a parking lot on the east side of the building.

The 1880s were ripe years for grocery/saloon hybrids. Oshkosh had more than a dozen of them, four in the Sixth Ward alone. The ward was a magnet for Bavarian and Bohemian immigrants. Wolter’s saloon became an anchorage for immigrants trying to find their place in a foreign city that was now their home.

The Sixth Ward was also on its way to earning its brawling reputation as the “Bloody Sixth Ward.” But Wolter contributed nothing to that project. August Wolter ran an orderly saloon, largely free of the mayhem that plagued so many Oshkosh bars. The agreeable atmosphere fostered Wolter’s success. The social lubricant was fresh beer from Horn & Schwalm’s Brooklyn Brewery. It was the only draft beer Wolter served.

An 1891 advertisement for Horn & Schwalm’s Brooklyn Brewery at 16th and Doty in Oshkosh.

The saloon grew so prosperous that it squeezed out the grocery. From 1899 onward, Wolter’s saloon occupied the entire ground floor of the building. The Wolters family moved into the rooms upstairs.

A 1903 map of the neighborhood clustered around 5th and Ohio. The street address for Wolter’s Saloon was then 280 Fifth. Before moving into the rooms above the saloon, the Wolters family had lived at 276 Fifth. Click map to enlarge.

Pabst Brewing had been watching Wolter’s saloon grow. When the Milwaukee brewery came calling, Wolter sold out. Pabst purchased the building and business on September 22, 1905. And with that, August Wolter retired. He was 54.

The New Brew at the old Wolter’s Saloon. Oshkosh Daily Northwestern August 5, 1905.

Bobbie's Inn
Otto Ziegenhagen lived next door to the saloon in the house the Wolters family had previously lived in. Otto was 36, the eldest son of German immigrants. He worked at Paine Lumber and seems to have been moonlighting at Wolter’s saloon. After Pabst bought it, Otto went behind the bar full time. He was the kind of guy Pabst liked for its tied-houses. Otto Ziegenhagen was a Republican ward heeler and known to absolutely everyone on the Southside.

Otto Ziegenhagen turned out to be part of a package deal. His younger brothers Ed and Bob, both living a couple of doors east of the saloon, began working for him. In 1909, brother Bob took over. He was 27 and destined to become a lead horse in Pabst’s Oshkosh stable. The saloon was renamed Bobbie's Inn, and it flourished.

From the 1914 Oshkosh City Directory. The street addresses had been renumbered in 1908 and would change again in 1957. The Ziegenhagen home at 830 5th is now addressed as 536 W 5th and still stands.

Pabst soon had bigger plans for Bobbie Ziegenhagen. In 1918, he was reassigned to a place a block south: The brewery's marquee saloon at the southeast corner of 6th and Ohio. It was called the Pabst Exchange, and it was the most elaborate beer hall on the Southside. That building remains at the southeast corner of 6th and Ohio.

The Pabst Exchange, circa 1900.

At 5th and Ohio, Pabst brought in a new guy named Mike King. But King’s career as a saloon keeper got aborted by an obnoxious mistake called National Prohibition. And that changed everything. The mild, old Wolter’s saloon transformed into a rowdy, lawless place. That part of this history requires a monograph all its own.

This is the first in the three part series covering the history of this tavern from its inception in 1883 through 2026. Here are links to the later posts…

    Part 2: A Sixth-Ward Mutiny 

    Part 3: From Prohibition to Players 

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Get Notified: Email me at OshkoshBeer@gmail.com to receive an email notification when I publish a new post. Your email address will not be shared or sold.

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The Father of Oshkosh Saloons

People who knew Webster Stanley in the 1850s didn’t think of him as the “Father of Oshkosh.” In fact, they probably gave him no thought at all. Stanley was a luckless relic best known for his misfortune. He looked more like a washout than the sire of a vibrant city.

A decomposed 1850s photo of Webster Stanley over an 1853 Oshkosh plat map.

Stanley’s reputational crash was tied to the land he staked out in the summer of 1836. He had claimed 117.8 acres that would later become prime real estate. It was called Saukeer, then, and it was wilderness. Stanley established a home and then a tavern there. Oshkosh grew up around his tavern. Stanley’s claim included the east side of what is now N. Main Street, running from the river all the way north to Merritt Ave. That land should have made Stanley rich.

An 1858 map showing land (north of the river) claimed by Stanley in 1836. Main Street is at the left edge, Bowen Street is at the right edge. It had become the most densely populated ward in the city (click to enlarge).

But that land did not make Webster Stanley rich. His undoing began in April 1840, when it came time for him to make good on his claim. The federal government wanted $1.25 an acre. Stanley couldn’t come up with the money. Daniel Butler, a Green Bay land speculator, stepped in and grabbed it. Butler paid $147.28 for the land Stanley was squatting on. Stanley bought the property back seven months later, with money borrowed from a Green Bay banker. He paid Butler $400, or $3.41 an acre. The land’s value had increased 172% in seven months.

The loan came due in 1844, but Stanley lacked the cash to pay it off. He took a second loan to pay off the first. And then fell behind on that loan. Stanley grew desperate. In January 1846, he made a deal with a cunning financier from Taycheedah called Col. Henry Conklin. Stanley agreed to deed Conklin half his land if Conklin would satisfy the mortgage. Conklin paid off the note and promptly claimed the title for the entire 117 acres. And then he called the sheriff. Stanley was evicted from the property that had been his home for a decade.

Col. Henry Conklin

Stanley protested Conklin’s subterfuge. Conklin ignored him. He subdivided the land and began selling off the lots. If you live on the east side of Oshkosh, Conklin might sound familiar. It may be on your deed or tax bill. Some of the east side plats still carry the Conklin name.

An annotated, 1848 plat map for Conklin’s 2nd Addition Subdivision. Many of the lots on this map are still associated with Conklin's subdivision.

Stanley fought and failed to get his land back. The nasty episode finally sputtered to an end in 1852 when Stanley’s lawyer exhausted his last appeal at the U.S. District Court. For the rest of his life, Stanley maintained that he had been cheated. His son Henry embellished the plot with tales of conspiracy and mob violence. Webster Stanley was more philosophical. Some 40 years after the fact, he explained that in those days money was hard to get and “justice was still harder.”

Stanley and the First Saloons
Stanley’s dispossession coincided with a wave of migration. It transformed the frontier outpost into a city with a population of nearly 1,400 by 1850. Other settlers were cashing in. Among them were the Jackson and Wright families.

In 1846, William Wright and his brother-in-law Joseph Jackson subdivided land they and their family members owned on the west side of Pamachamit, an old trail choked by underbrush. Jackson and Wright wanted to make it into Oshkosh’s main thoroughfare. Today, Pamachamit is North Main Street.

William Wright (left) and Joseph Jackson.

Wright and Jackson needed Webster Stanley’s help to realize their scheme. Stanley operated the only licensed ferry in Oshkosh. The ferry was based a couple of blocks east of Pamachamit. Wright and Jackson wanted it moved to the foot of Pamachamit, thereby directing traffic to their proposed business district. And, in turn, increasing the value of their land.

They lured Stanley by offering him the proprietorship of the saloon and rooming house they would build on Pamachamit. Stanley took the bait and moved his ferry. Pamachamit became Ferry Street. And in the summer of 1846, Webster Stanley opened the first saloon in Oshkosh at what is now the southwest corner of Main and Pearl streets.

Wright and Jackson wanted Stanley for his ferry. That he knew how to run a bar was a bonus. Stanley had operated a frontier tavern on the land he had lost. It opened around 1838 and served as an all-purpose village hub. The new place wasn’t meant to be so flexible. This was a true saloon intended for drinking and social gathering. But like his earlier tavern, Stanley’s saloon anchored a burst of development.

Ferry Street colonized even more quickly than Wright and Jackson expected. Three stores, a shoe shop, a shingle factory, and about 20 homes went up on or adjacent to Ferry Street by the fall of 1846. There would have been more construction if they hadn’t run out of building materials.

An 1850s depiction of Ferry Street, looking north from the river. 

Amidst the boom, Webster Stanley was ejected again. In the spring of 1847, the saloon he inhabited was sold to Manoah Griffin, a newcomer from Maine. Griffin moved the entire structure to the east side of the street, where he had bought four lots in what is now the 100 block of N. Main. His “Oshkosh House” was up and running by the summer of 1848.

Griffin renovated Stanley’s “shanty” saloon, turning it into a three-story public house. Griffin claimed it was “one of the largest and best located mansions for public entertainment in Northern Wisconsin." He also claimed it was “the first tavern opened in the village of Oshkosh.” Only the newest of newcomers would not have recognized that as bullshit.

Oshkosh True Democrat, February 9, 1849.

Then they came for the ferry. The Fox River Bridge Company was formed in 1847 by a clutch of Ferry Street gentry. They wanted a floating bridge spanning the Fox River from the foot of Ferry Street. The bridge would render the Stanley’s Ferry obsolete. He had been stripped of everything else by this point. Stanley conceded to the inevitable before it came to pass. The bridge opened to traffic on July 3, 1849. Stanley had already abandoned the ferry and was living on the Southside by then.

Looking north over the floating bridge in the 1850s.

The Birth of Brooklyn
Stanley’s move to Saukeer in 1836 led to the creation of Oshkosh. And then he got kicked out. Stanley's move to Pamachamet in 1846 led to the creation of Main Street. He got kicked out again. He had nothing to show for all that he had enabled. He’d lost everything but his capacity for enabling.

Henry and Joseph Stringham were of a mind to exploit Stanley’s singular talent. In 1838, Henry Stringham claimed much of what now constitutes the Southside of Oshkosh. He owned everything south of the river and east of what is now Ohio Street, all the way down to what is now 17th Ave. Henry’s brother Joseph oversaw the vast property. A lone prairie of scrubland and stinking marshes.

The Stringham brothers made Stanley an offer: they would give him nearly an acre of their land if he opened a saloon and boarding house near the south shore of the river. Stanley’s new saloon was called the Brooklyn House, and it seeded the next stage of Oshkosh’s expansion. It was the first multi-story building south of the river. A collection of businesses gathered around it. For decades to come, the Southside’s old Third Ward would be known locally as Brooklyn.

A rendering of Oshkosh’s Brooklyn twenty years after Stanley arrived there.

The Brooklyn House stood at what is now South Main just south of 7th Ave. Stanley had the bar up and running before the end of 1848; well before the float bridge opened to traffic. But his tenure at the Brooklyn House was frequently disrupted. Saloon keepers cycled through almost annually. The turnover may have been due to the Stringham brothers, who retained ownership of the property. Stanley rotated in and out. When he wasn’t at the Brooklyn, he could be found on a farmstead in what is now the Town of Nekimi.

Despite the disruptions, the Stringhams eventually made good on their promise to hand Stanley a slice of their Southside real estate. It was a choice cut, spanning four lots directly east of the Brooklyn House. The Stringhams claimed the property was worth $1,000, or about $40,000 in today's money.

The red block indicates the approximate location of the Brooklyn House. The blue block represents the lots Stanley owned.

Stanley had land again, but he was still dirt poor. He lacked the resources to build anything more than a small shanty on the property. His ongoing money trouble had him back in court, where he was being sued by two of his debtors. Stanley could not have missed the irony. The town around him was booming. He had done so much to make that possible. Yet he had next to nothing to show for it.

Webster Stanley was 60 years old when he gave up on Oshkosh. In 1858, he sold the lots that were given to him by the Stringham brothers. He used the money to buy 51 acres of bayou land at the south end of Partridge Crop Lake in Waupaca County. The Wolf River snaked through it. The Wolf had become an important conduit for moving people and supplies through the area. Stanley and his son George built a saloon and hotel called Stanley’s Landing at a bend in the river. For the next decade, Stanley’s Landing was a favored port of call for Wolf River boat traffic.

The red marker is at the former site of Stanley’s Landing (click to enlarge).

The Father of Oshkosh
The Geographical and Statistical History of the County of Winnebago was published in 1856. Webster Stanley had come here twenty years earlier. The book was a first stab at curating the early history of non-native settlers to the area. Its depiction of Webster Stanley was superficial: “Stanley was a man of enterprise, was one of the founders of business in Oshkosh.”

Co-authors Martin Mitchel and Joseph H. Osborn had been living in Oshkosh for at least a decade when they wrote that. Curiously, they refer to Stanley in the past tense. Webster Stanley and his family were living at the Brooklyn House at the time.

Cover of the 1856 Geographical and Statistical History with a drawing of Webster Stanley that appeared on page 63.

The first meaningful reappraisal of Webster Stanley’s significance occurred a decade later. In 1867, the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern published the Biographical and Statistical History of the City of Oshkosh. It was written by Orange H. Harris. He had come to town a year earlier and was obsessed with the city’s history.

Orange H. Harris

Orange Harris never met Webster Stanley. He may have heard about Stanley’s troubles, but he didn’t share them. Harris focused on the early years. He leaned on a handful of aging settlers for his information. Pioneers like George Wright and Joseph Jackson. They told him of Stanley and how the city came to be. Their memories and shared documents “formed the base of what I have written,” Harris explained. He saw all of it from a fresh perspective.

Harris reshaped the narrative. He reintroduced Stanley as “the founder of Oshkosh.” The admiration was unequivocal. “Mr. Stanley was a man of energy, and doubtless entitled to all the credit he receives,” Harris wrote. Despite being very much alive, Stanley was still being consigned to the past tense.

​Others came around to Harris’ point of view. Richard Harney and William Wright were influential Oshkoshers who had known Webster Stanley for years. Both began writing about the city’s history. Stanley was placed at the center of the stories they told. By the 1880s, Webster Stanley had ascended from the founder of Oshkosh to the Father of Oshkosh.

He may not even have known that he was becoming a folk hero. He’d been away for a decade. When his wife, Sophia, died in 1869, Webster Stanley brought her body to Oshkosh for burial. But he didn't stay.

Sophia Stanley’s headstone. Ellenwood Cemetery, Oshkosh.

Stanley abandoned his Waupaca land after Sophia’s death. He moved to Appleton. He was 72 now. Stanley lived with his son George and worked as a carpenter. Meanwhile, the legend grew. Stories recalling his early days in Oshkosh appeared in every major Wisconsin newspaper. The stories spread to papers in Michigan, Indiana, and Tennessee.

By 1875, Stanley was well aware of his growing celebrity. He visited Oshkosh again in 1876. He introduced himself to the editors of the Oshkosh Times and the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern. The Times described him as one of “those rare links between the past and present. His mind is perfectly clear and he seems to be posted on all that is going on around him.”

Webster Stanley in the early 1870s.

The recognition didn’t do him a damned bit of good. “I am very poor, have never begged yet but don’t know how soon I may be compelled to,” Stanley confided to a reporter. He was asking for help. The prosperous city that called him father didn’t give it.

A year later, Stanley moved to Keshena to live on the Menominee Reservation. He’d long shared a camaraderie with the Menominee. They had treated him better than most others. His presence at Keshena raised eyebrows and became fodder for several Wisconsin newspapers. A Kenosha paper mentioned his presence on the reservation and quipped that "Stanley was originally the half-owner of all of Oshkosh, but is now munching on the crust of poverty.”

His hearing and eyesight began failing him. Stanley returned to Appleton. At 81, he still worked - as best he could - as a carpenter. He finally gave it up when he went blind. Stanley was living with his son George again. In 1885, George decided they’d move to the Dakota Territory and start anew. Webster Stanley had just turned 87.

George W. Stanley.

Before they left Wisconsin, a journalist from the Oshkosh Times went to Appleton to interview Webster Stanley. The reporter was impressed: “He retains his intellect wonderfully, speaks of bygone days clearly, and distinctly remembers names and incidents.” The article that followed was the longest and most detailed account of his story that Stanley ever took part in.

Stanley’s version differs from the idealized fable that had become, and remains, Oshkosh lore. He settled in Oshkosh, he said, because he was “charmed” by its beauty. He talked about the loss of his land and his hardships. He talked about fellowship, but not about the rugged individualism that others had projected onto him. He talked a lot about Native Americans. The Times reporter wrote that, “The Menomonees [sic] and half-breeds have always been his friends, and in speaking of them he became very much affected.”

The Stanley’s left for the Dakota Territory. They came to a dead-end town that is now Columbia, South Dakota. The end of the line. Webster Stanley died there on January 19, 1887 at the age of 88. He was buried under a makeshift wooden marker. His name was scratched into it with a nail. The Father of Oshkosh died poor and passed into rich myth.

February 2, 1887; Oshkosh Daily Northwestern.

The White Settler
On June 14, 1930, a dedication ceremony was held for a marker placed on the land where Webster Stanley settled in 1836. Among the dignitaries mouthing half-truths and banalities was the Wisconsin Governor, Walter Kohler. The Marker was just a stone’s throw east of the site where Webster Stanley was evicted from his home in 1846. There was no mention of that at the dedication.

The Webster Stanley marker at the corner of Bowen and Bay Shore.

In the days that followed, there was talk of exhuming the “practically unmarked grave” where Webster Stanley was planted. “It is proposed to bring the remains to this city at some time in the future, if the project can be financed.” The if became no. They couldn’t raise the money.

In 1953, there was a contest to name the new school that was about go up on the east side at Hazel and Melvin streets. The winner was Thomas Harenburg, a sixth grader who submitted the name Webster Stanley, Oshkosh’s “first white settler.”

Dec 15, 1953; Oshkosh Daily Northwestern.

The school named for Webster Stanley was demolished in 2023 to make way for a new school. Again, there was a contest to find a name. Webster Stanley didn’t win this time. The new school was named Menominee Elementary. Webster Stanley might have preferred it that way.

A portrait of Webster Stanley that was painted and given to Webster Stanley Junior High by Oshkosh artist Joseph Vogt in 1966. It was rediscovered in 2013 in the school’s boiler room.

Webster Stanley, the "first white settler” in Oshkosh… it was repeated so often that it became a truism even before his death. Webster Stanley knew it wasn’t so. The more relevant detail is that nobody at all seemed to care that the “Father” of Oshkosh was a lifelong tavern and saloon operator. In some towns, that sort of truth might be unacceptable. Not in Oshkosh. You can’t help but like that.

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This is the third and final post in a series about the early taverns of Oshkosh and Webster Stanley.

The First Tavern begins the series with George Johnston, a Virginia settler who arrived here years before Webster Stanley.

It was followed by Webster Stanley and his Tavern, which concerns Stanley's first decade here.