Pieces of a Brewery

I want to expand on something I mentioned in last Monday’s post that involved this picture.

That’s a lithograph produced for the Oshkosh Brewing Company at the turn of the century. But as I said last week, the brewery looked nothing like this. This print shows an amalgamation of OBC’s three separate brewing facilities. Each was located in a different part of town.

Let’s break this down. First, here’s the piece of the picture that represents the OBC facility located at what is now 1235-1239 Harney Ave. Prior to the formation of OBC in 1893, this was Lorenz Kuenzl’s Gambrinus Brewery.

It’s difficult to see, but the sign on the building with the flag flying over it says “Bottling Dept.” At this point OBC was bottling its beer here. That building had been used as an ice house when the Gambrinus Brewery was in operation.

As you’ll see, the artist took a few liberties with the subject. Here’s the real thing.

Now we head to the south side of town. They used to have a pet name for it: Brooklyn. I wish that were still an Oshkosh colloquialism. Anyway, at the end of Doty Street, in what is now the 2400 block, stood one of OBC's two brewhouses. This was formerly John Glatz and Son’s Union Brewery.

And here’s what that piece of OBC actually looked like.

Just up the road from the old Glatz Brewery was OBC’s other brewhouse. This was once known as Horn and Schwalm’s Brooklyn Brewery. Here’s the part of the lithograph showing that brewery. It was located in what is now the 1600 block of Doty Street.

Notice that it has “Established 1865” on the gable atop the malt house. That’s one of the few times OBC got its starting date right. That’s the date when Leonhardt Schwalm launched the Brooklyn Brewery, the oldest of the three breweries that merged to form OBC.

Here’s what the old Brooklyn Brewery really looked like.

Part of that brewery still stands. It’s the only piece of this picture that remains. This is what it looks like today.

The color lithograph wasn’t the first stab OBC took at painting itself larger than life. Here’s a drawing of the brewery from 1898. This one is even more delusional.

OBC certainly wasn’t unique in doing this sort of thing. At a time when photography was less common, brewery images were most often rendered by hand. And more often than not the artists aggrandized their subject. Here’s another example. This is a late-1800s drawing of the Glatz Brewery. The artist added a third floor to it.

And here’s an 1891 ad with a drawing of the Brooklyn Brewery. Again, an extra floor was added.

One last photo. Unfortunately, I don’t know when this was taken. I’m guessing it was shot somewhere around 1905-1910. This the former Glatz Brewery after it had been rebranded as the Oshkosh Brewing Company. These days it’s the home of Glatz Park. They don’t build ‘em like this anymore…

Pieces of the Past at Glatz Park

In 1894, Glatz’s Union Brewery merged with two other Oshkosh breweries to form the Oshkosh Brewing Company (OBC). After the merger, much of OBC’s beer was brewed at what had been the Glatz Brewery. That arrangement held until 1911, when OBC built its new brewery on the east side of Doty Street just south of 16th Avenue.

Three years after the new brewery had gone up, the old Glatz brewery was taken down. But there are pieces of it that linger. The next time you visit Glatz Park, look for the low, stone wall that runs parallel with Doty Street. It was constructed in either 1867 or 1872 (a note on that below). The stone wall at Glatz Park is the oldest piece of brewery standing in Oshkosh.

That remaining portion was part of the brewery’s stone foundation. But it was just a small part of the edifice. This was a large structure, approximately 160 feet long and 60 feet wide. The piece that remains was at the back (west) side of the brewery near its southernmost end. Let’s get a sense of where it fit within the rest of the brewery.

First, here’s a picture of the John Glatz Union Brewery, circa 1886. This is the front of the brewery. It’s what you would have seen if you were looking west while standing at the southern end of Doty Street.

Here’s something to take notice of that we’ll come back to later... Look to the left side of the photo showing the southern end of the brewery. You’ll see an opening leading under the building. That was an access point to one of the brewery’s beer cellars. It looks like the wagons loaded with kegs have just emerged from there.

Next is a detail of a Sanborn Fire Insurance Map published in 1903. I’ve added a green highlight over the approximate location of the foundation wall that remains in Glatz Park.

That remaining piece is about 58 feet long. Nearly 100 feet of that wall was still intact when Glatz Park opened on July 4, 1976.

If you visit Glatz Park, take a look on the east side of the wall. You’ll find plenty of evidence of the beer cellar that was at the southern end of the brewery. What’s left is rubble, but it wasn’t all that long ago you could prowl the caverns where Glatz lagered his beer. These caverns were once the main attraction at Glatz Park. Let’s take a virtual tour.

Entering the park from Doty Street, you’d get your first look into the cellar. For the picture below the camera was aimed north. Beyond the fence, you can see the stone arch above the entrance to Cavern 1.

There were two main caverns under this end of the brewery. Both were approximately 15 feet wide, 25 feet long and 12 feet high at the peaks of their arched entryways.

In the picture below, we’re looking down at the two caverns. Cavern 1, which we saw in the picture above, is to the right (east). Cavern 2 is to the left of Cavern 1.

Here’s a walkway that ran along the south end of the two caverns. Straight ahead we see a smaller arched doorway that led out towards the front of the brewery. The wall on the right was the southernmost foundation of the brewery.

Now a look inside those two caverns. Here’s the inside of Cavern 1 looking north.

And here’s the inside of Cavern 2, also looking north.

It kills me that these have been lost. I’ve heard stories that stone from the caverns was taken to the Paine for use in the formal garden that was there. I haven’t been able to confirm that.

One last thing: I’d love to hear from people who remember exploring Glatz Park when the beer cellar was still accessible. I’ve been going by old maps and pictures to draw my conclusions. That’s better than nothing, but the potential for error is high. If you know more, or can correct mistaken interpretations I’ve made, please leave a comment or contact me at oshkoshbeer@gmail.com. And if you haven’t visited Glatz Park yet, don’t wait too long. As the past attests, what’s left may not last.

Thanks to Steve and Janet Wissink for sharing their memories and pictures of Glatz Park.

Note on dates: The first brewery at what is now Glatz Park was built in 1867. That brewery burned in 1871. The brewery was rebuilt in 1872. It’s not known if the portion of the foundation still standing was part of the original, 1867 brewery.

John Glatz and the Union Brewery of Oshkosh

John Glatz

The forty-year journey of John Glatz from Baden-Württemberg, Germany to Oshkosh, Wisconsin is the story of an itinerant brewer who learned his craft in the old world, adapted it to the new world and finally found his home in a foreign city almost 5,000 miles from his place of birth. Glatz was born on December 24, 1829 in Pfullingen, a small town at the foot of the Swabian Alps in southern Germany. He began making beer at the ripe age of 14 and after serving his brewing apprenticeship, immigrated to America in 1853. That same year, Oshkosh became a city.

Upon arriving in America, Glatz went to Cincinnati. Its large German population and booming beer scene would have seemed a natural fit for an ambitious, 23-year-old brewer. But after three years of making beer there, Glatz was on the move again. He spent six months brewing in Philadelphia and then in 1857 went to Milwaukee where beer was becoming an essential element of the burgeoning city. For a time, Glatz appeared to have found his niche. He settled in as foreman of a South Side brewery and in 1861 the 32-year-old Glatz took a 19-year-old bride named Louisa Elser. The brewer from Baden had established a comfortable living. After 12 years of brewing someone else’s beer, though, Glatz wanted a brewery of his own. He found the opportunity he was looking for in Oshkosh.

In 1869 there was a new brewery in waiting at the south end of Doty Street. It had been built by Franz Wahle, who in 1857 had founded the Stevens Point Brewery. After selling the Point Brewery in 1867, Wahle moved to Oshkosh and began construction of the new brewhouse that would become the Union Brewery and the new home of the John Glatz family.

John and Louisa Glatz now had three children and shortly after moving into the brewery they were joined by Christian Elser, his wife Anna and their three children. In all probability, Elser was the older brother of Louisa Glatz, but he wasn’t just family, he was an experienced brewer, as well. The German-born Elser was 29 and prior to coming to Oshkosh had brewed at the Bavarian Brewery in Wauwatosa under the tutelage of Franz Falk, a master brewer from Bavaria. With almost 40 years of experience between them, Glatz and Elser were a significant addition to Oshkosh’s flourishing community of brewers.

When the Union Brewery went into operation in 1869 it became one of six Oshkosh breweries and within their first year Glatz and Elser produced a respectable 500 barrels of beer. The Oshkosh beer market was expanding and Glatz and Elser were poised to take a sizable portion of it, but first they’d be dealt a disastrous set-back. At 10 p.m. on a cold Friday in early December of 1871 the brewery that Wahle built caught fire. Firefighters soon arrived, but were unable to draw water. They watched as the Union Brewery burned to the ground.

The Union Brewery 1886

At the time of the fire Franz Wahle owned the brewery, but Glatz and Elser had insured the business for $6,000. When their claim came through in January of 1872, Glatz and Elser purchased the ruins of the brewhouse and the four acres of land surrounding it from Wahle for $5,400 - a figure that would today amount to about $135,000. And then they started all over again.

This time there would be no deterring them. In 1872 Glatz and Elser rebuilt the brewery and over the next five years more than tripled their original output. Though their methods were informed by centuries of German brewing practice, theirs was truly an Oshkosh beer made with locally grown hops and grain that Glatz himself malted at the brewery. Success came early and by 1878 they were making more beer than any other brewery in Oshkosh, producing over 1,500 barrels a year. An impressive figure considering the size of their market (Oshkosh’s population was then just 14,876) and the seasonal limitations faced by lager brewers in the years before mechanical refrigeration was commonplace. Oshkosh was quickly becoming a regional force in Wisconsin brewing and Glatz and Elser were leading the way.

Production continued to increase and in 1879 the Union Brewery surpassed its previous year’s effort by more than 100 barrels. But 1879 was also a pivotal year for the Union Brewery. In the fall of that year, Glatz and Elser dissolved their partnership and on November 7, 1879 Elser sold his interest in the brewery to Glatz for $13,000; a sum that would be worth about $288,000 today. Elser would go on to establish a meat market and beer bottling business on 18th Avenue between Doty and Oregon and Glatz kept right on brewing. He had eight employees working for him now, not including his son William, who at 17 would have certainly been old enough by his father’s standard to become immersed in the business of making beer.

The Oshkosh beer market, though, was changing rapidly. When the Brooklyn Brewery, just up the street on Doty, burned down in 1879, August Horn and Theodore Schwalm built a larger brewery in its place that would soon outpace the production of Glatz’s plant. But more troubling than the local competition was the “foreign” beer being brought in from Milwaukee. The Milwaukee brewers, Pabst and Schlitz in particular, had capacity advantages, which allowed them to flood growing markets such as the one in Oshkosh, making it difficult for local brewers to compete. Glatz battled back. He struck a deal with William Dichmann, proprietor of the leading grocery on Main Street, to distribute his beer and dramatically increased the capacity of his small brewery, eventually plateauing at an incredible 30,000 barrels a year. Glatz also began producing a series of to-the-point advertisements that never failed to include the lines, “As good as Milwaukee beer. And much cheaper.” It was a well-aimed retort coming from a man who had spent more than 12 years of his life brewing “Milwaukee beer”.

Glatz continued on as the sole owner of the Union Brewery until 1888. On May 1st of that year, he made his 25-year-old son, William, a full partner in the business. John Glatz was now 59 years old. His brewing career was nearing its end, but not before he would influence the next stage in Oshkosh’s development as a brewing center. In 1894 Glatz merged his Union Brewery with Horn and Schwalm’s Brooklyn Brewery and Lorenz Kuenzl’s Gambrinus Brewery to form the Oshkosh Brewing Company. Glatz was named vice president of the new company. His son William, who ten years later would become president of Oshkosh Brewing, was appointed treasurer. On April 12, 1894 John and Louisa Glatz deeded their brewery to the Oshkosh Brewing Company for $78,000, an amount that would now equal just over 2 million dollars. A year later, on April 25, 1895, John Glatz died at the age of sixty five.

The Union Brewery remained operational until 1915 when it was dismantled and its production moved to the large, modern brewery built by the Oshkosh Brewing Company on Doty Street in 1911. In 1976, the site of the brewery was bought by the city of Oshkosh and re-named Glatz Park. Today there’s little there to suggest the dynamism that characterized the years when the Union Brewery was running full tilt. The park is unmarked and mostly left untended. All that is left of the brewery are the outcroppings of the lagering caves that were at the foundation of the brewhouse.

Remains of Union Brewery Caverns 1975

But there’s a surviving structure just to the north of the brewery lot that may have been even closer to John Glatz’s heart. In the last year of his life, Glatz built a magnificent home that stands to this day at 2405 Doty Street. The house has recently been renovated and is as beautiful as it was when Glatz lived there. A legend that has drifted down through the years is that John Glatz used the smashed beer bottles of his competitors to adorn the peaks of his home, as if making a crown for himself from the shattered bones of his rivals. If you look up under the eaves of the house you can still see the pieces of beer bottles that are embedded at the crests. If the legend is true, John Glatz’s crown remains intact.

The Home of John Glatz 1894 & 2010

Thanks to Mike and Margie Douglas for their tour and pictures of the Glatz house. Thanks, also, to Dan Radig for pictures of the Union Brewery lagering caves.