Oshkosh Saloons of 1902: The Little Cozy Sample Room

The Little Cozy Sample Room, 216 N. Main Street.
George Miller and Bert Gough, Proprietors.

George Miller and Bert Gough were first-generation Americans born to parents who had come here from Germany. Both were seasoned saloon men by the time they opened the Little Cozy in 1901. I suspect this may be them standing behind the bar.

The Little Cozy Sample Room; page 90 Oshkosh Up to Date, 1902.

This wasn’t just another nickel beer joint. This was a high-end beer bar serving premium beers made in Oshkosh, Milwaukee, St. Louis, and London. By this point in our crawl you may have noticed that you're not seeing tap handles jutting up from behind the bar in any of these places. They had a different sort of setup in 1902.

In the picture above, look between the man in the hat and the hatless man in the dark suit. You’ll see what looks like three faucets. That’s exactly what they are, but these faucets poured beer. They’re attached to an icebox. Block ice was loaded into the top of the cabinet. Cold air would drift down keeping the beer below nice and cool.

Let’s get a better look at one of these beer cabinets. The picture below is from a catalog put out by the Robert Brand and Sons Co. of Oshkosh. Brand was one of the Midwest’s main producers of these contraptions.

The back end of the Little Cozy was occupied by the card room. Have a look...

I’m guessing those potted plants were fake. Or short-lived. This would not have been a room conducive to the habitation of greenery. Imagine this place deep into a Saturday night. The booze is flowing. The cards are flying. The spittoons are filling up and the cigar smoke is so thick you can't see the portraits of the women on the walls. That place must have smelled just lovely by the time Sunday morning rolled around.

Well, it smells better now. What was the Little Cozy is now Screwballs Sports Club. And now the beer taps are front and center.

 

Screwballs Sports Club, 216 N. Main St.

Screwballs Sports Club.

The crawl continues….
The final stop on the 1902 Saloon Crawl is Schlitz Hall at the corner of Washington and State.
To return to the start of the crawl, click here.
For links to all of the stops on the crawl click here.

Notes
I have something of a minor obsession with the Little Cozy. If you want to know more, I’ve written about this place before here and here.