Banholzerian underground zymurgy
For those interested in reading more about Banholzer ancestry the family also had a brewery in St. Paul
A rotund man with a handlebar moustache, William Banholzer "was all business." Almost single-handedly, he turned a 1,000 barrel-a-year brewery into a 12,000 barrel-a-year operation. "Banholzer's
The cave was accessible from both the bottom of the river bluff (south of the brewery) and from the top of the cliff (right inside the plant's main stone building). Today this cave still runs from the river bank, under
In 1886, William established "Banholzer's Park" in the empty lots north of the brewery. The park was to serve as a recreation area for neighborhood picnickers who drank at Banholzer's outdoor beer garden, and it provided barbeques, outdoor bowling, German band music, balloon rides to Lilydale and, of course, cold kegs of North Mississippi beer.
THE FINANCIAL SUCCESS of the North Mississippi Company can probably best be measured by the prosperity of its owner, William Banholzer. In 1885, he built a magnificent stone house at
Evidently, spelunkers still explore the streets beneath St. Paul in search of an elusive Banholzer Beer. I can almost taste the foamy suds from one now…
http://www.citypages.com/content/printVersion/12739
Uh-oh! Just discovered some bad news about why the brewery began floundering: A worker fell into a hot vat of beer and was boiled to death!
Now, I’m not so thirsty as before.
Hey, he's a hero in my book (despite the tragedy in the vat of beer)
ReplyDelete"In 1886, William established "Banholzer's Park" in the empty lots north of the brewery. The park was to serve as a recreation area for neighborhood picnickers who drank at Banholzer's outdoor beer garden, and it provided barbeques, frisbee golf, German band music, balloon rides to Lilydale and, of course, cold kegs of North Mississippi beer."
What a great idea! We need more parks like this...
They should add a Frisbee disc golf course and hand out free Banholzerian beers, whenever you score a hole in one.
ReplyDeleteThis just in from A.B. via Zap Zang:
ReplyDeleteAlright, well as far as that house goes its pretty easy to get tours of the place, provided you just contact hazelden and say you're interested about the treatment programs they offer there.
I heard rumors that there may have been a passage from the Banholzer residence down to the cellars. In the cafeteria (which, back during Frederick's or William's day would have been the back yard) there was a 3 x 3 foot panel on the floor which could be opened by removing some rubber stoppers. When I opened this, rushing air blasted me in the face and I could immediately smell the sandstone smell that all of the other sandstone tunnels in this area have.
Inside the shaft I opened there had been some sewage pipes routed down, with some really old looking rope and metal bars tied to it, looking as though some explorers had tried climbing the pipes long ago to see what was on the other side of the trap door.
About 20-30 feet down, the sewage pipes went underground and on the side of the shaft closest to the mississippi there was a small opening leading to some low sandstone tunnels. I tired going down to investigate making it just far enough to peer in the immediate void and see that it looked like it went further than what I could tell from the shaft.
Before I had a real chance to check it out, staff came by and got really pissed that I was crawling around tunnels under their facility. The next day the whole cafeteria was recarpeted, the trap door being carpeted over.
Banholzer purchased the North Mississippi Brewery, or what was
ReplyDeleteleft of it, in 1871 from F. A. Renz. Renz purchased the brewery in 1866 and unfortunately the "curse" of the brewery continued when the brewery burned the same year that Renz bought it. Anyone have anything to add to Renz's misfortune that cost him property and left him in debt?
Regards,
The great granddaughter of F. A. Renz
renz