Oshkosh Underground

In the late 1860s, there were at least six sets of subterranean beer caves in Oshkosh. Here's the only set of those caves that hasn't been filled in. This picture was taken in 2012.

That's beneath the old Horn and Schwalm Brewery on the east side of Doty Street just south of 16th. If you could go back 150 years, you would have seen that cave packed with barrels full of lager beer in various stages of maturation and blocks of ice cut from Lake Winnebago to keep it cold.

Construction of the Horn and Schwalm caves began in 1865. Here's how it looks down there today.

The Horn and Schwalm Brewery.
The top photo is from the 1880s.
The bottom photo was taken last summer.

Just down the street there once was another set of elaborate caves beneath the Glatz Brewery. They've been filled in, but you can get a look at them here.