DATE VISITED: 06/13/2015
HISTORICAL
SITE: Anheuser Busch Brewery
LOCATION: 721 Pestalozzi St., St. Louis, St. Louis Co.,
Missouri
MARKER #: 66000945
DEDICATED: November 11, 1966
Anheuser-Busch Brewery has been designated a National
Registered National Historic Landmark under the provisions of the Historic
Sites Act of August 21, 1935. This site possesses exceptional value in commemorating
or illustrating the history of the United States.
MARKER
PLACED BY: U. S. Department of
the Interior National Park Service
PERSONAL
REFLECTIONS:
There are three national landmarks at the Anheuser Busch
Brewery…the Old School House, the Clydesdale Stables and the Brew House.
The mid 1800’s saw a big influx of Germans to America for
political reasons. The Germans brought with them “lager” beer meaning beer that
had “rested” in wooden casks underground.
Eberhard Anheuser came to America and quickly became the
largest soup and candle manufacturer.
He became part owner of Bavarian Brewery
and by 1860, had bought out the other partner, changing the name to E. Anheuser
& Co.
Adolphus Busch was the second youngest of 22 children…no
wonder he left home at 18; coming to St. Louis, by the time he was 22, had a
partnership in a brewing supply business.
Busch met Anheuser and was soon introduced to his daughter, Lilly,
who he married in 1861. Busch went to work for his father in law and later
purchased half the brewery.
Busch wanted to create a brand that appealed to more than the
local area which is how most beer was sold. He called this beer “Budweiser” thinking
it would appeal to German immigrants but still be able to be pronounced by
Americans.
Busch was the first American to use pasteurization and by the
mid 1870’s, early 1880’s, introduced railcars and rail-side icehouses. The
rail-side icehouses were there to restock ice on the railcars in order to keep
the beer cold until its destination. Now they could distribute nationwide and Budweiser
became the first national beer brand.
The first national landmark, the Old School House, was built
in 1868 and even then cost $42,000. It was known as the Lyon School, named
after Union General Nathanial Lyon, and served the entire southern and western
parts of St. Louis. Three floors with 12 furnace warmed rooms, it could accommodate
700 students. By 1907, the city no longer needed the school. We were told
during the tour that in actuality, the city decided that it wasn’t a very good
idea to have a school on brewery property and sold the building to
Anheuser-Busch who used it as their Admin building until 1982.
The first use of the well-known symbol A & Eagle was used
in 1872 and was trademarked in 1877. The meaning behind the symbol was never
recorded but it is thought that the A stands for Anheuser and the eagle a show
of respect for his new county...the U.S.
Finally, in 1879, E. Anheuser & Co. was renamed
Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association.
Anheuser died in 1880 and Busch took over as president until
his death in 1913 when August Busch became president.
The second landmark, the Clydesdale stables, were built in
1885 and cost $35,000. It was once the private stables for Adolphus Busch whose
home stood 200 feet southeast of the building. Inside it resembles a railroad
roundhouse. When the family moved to its current estate, the stables fell into
disuse and finally, at the repeal of prohibition in 1933, it was decided to
renovate the stables and keep the Clydesdale horses there.
And finally, the Brew House was built around 1892 and stands 6
stories high with a clock tower and is still the center of the brewery. The
inside has this huge multi storied hopvine chandelier. The exterior windows are
either stained or embossed glass with designs including the A & Eagle,
hops, barley or other brewery symbols. Originally constructed to produce an
annual production of 1.8 million barrels, it’s been expanded to have a capacity
of 15.8 million.
In 1901, the company broke the 1 million barrel sales mark for
the first time. Prohibition came in 1920 and the company diversified to stay in
business. They made soft drinks, ice cream, truck bodies and yeast…basically anything
to keep them in business. Prohibition ended in 1933.
Recovery was slow and the company was led by Adolphus Busch
III who became president in 1934 when his father died. By 1938, the company hit
the 2 million barrel mark.
During WWII, they relinquished their West Coast market to
conserve rail-car space for war materials…they did this voluntarily.
When Adolphus III died, his brother, August Jr. took over as
president who led the brewery through the opening of nine additional breweries.
Under the leadership of August Jr., beer sales increased from
3 million barrels to 34 million barrels where in 1957, Anheuser-Busch became
the leading U.S. brewer….a position it still holds today.
In 1982, the company introduced Bud Light nationally and today
it is one of the world’s bestselling beers.
In 2008, Anheuser-Busch merged with InBev and they are now the
world’s largest brewery.
I was curious to see how the tour differed from the one in
Fairfield, CA. I’ve been through the Fairfield tour twice, the first being a
number of years ago. That was a great tour. You got to walk all over the
brewery. By the time I went back to it…probably as a result of litigious California…it
was much smaller and much more restrictive.
This tour in St. Louis was somewhere in between. I had hoped
to be able to go on one of their more extensive tours but because of the St.
Louis Cardinals vs. the Kansas City Royals game, all reservations were full.
We went first to the Clydesdale stable. One of the workers was
spraying this purple stuff onto the white portions of the legs and told us that
it is a type of natural bleaching to keep the white nice and clean looking.
The next area was where they store the beer while the yeast
does its thing and that area was a nice 50° and felt really good…from there we
went to their warmest area, the mash tanks and thankfully, we were only there
for a very short time. 
One of the best part was when we were all finished and
much to my delight, when we got to the beer garden, there was a soda fountain
with Dr. Pepper in it… it was a very warm, muggy day and I was happy with my
soda while Dirk had a beer.
No comments:
Post a Comment