Notre Dame, breweries tell us history is fragile
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| Notre Dame burning on April 15. Photo: LeLaisserPasserA38 [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) |
The flames that erupted through the roof of the majestic Notre Dame de Paris last week gave us a shocking reminder of the fragile nature of history.
Architecture is a part of the record of our existence on earth. Old buildings tell us what times were like in our communities and around the world before we came. They're like postcards from the past.
When it comes to breweries, a lot of those postcards are missing. When I researched Dayton Beer: A History of Brewing in the Miami Valley, I wanted to locate as many original breweries as I could. Dayton itself had so many I had to make a map to help me keep track of them.
But when I went looking for them, I found very few still standing. In most cases, newer buildings, parks or parking lots had replaced them. Some had burned. Some had been torn down. Those that survived were masquerading as other kinds of buildings, their histories generally unknown.
A rare exception is the former Sachs-Pruden brewery at 120 S. Patterson Blvd. Edward Sachs (1851-1901) and David Pruden (1855-1910) built it with great expectations, commissioning the prominent Dayton architectural firm Peters and Burns (later Peters, Burns & Pretzinger) and pouring $150,000 into its construction, according to an 1893 Dayton Daily News report. It towered over the canal where South Patterson now runs and featured a 300-barrel brew kettle.
But its business failed after a few years. The Lowe Brothers Paint Company bought it in 1920, and later the Hauer family restored it for use as a music store. It's now the Dayton Metro Library's administration center.
A long. two-story building with an ornate facade at the southwest corner of Second and McGee is a former horse stable of the Olt Brothers brewery. Incorporated in 1906, it brewed until 1940, surviving prohibition with dairy products and Polar Distilled Water. In 2018, Warped Wing Brewing revived its once-popular Superba brand with a hoppy pilsner of the same name.
Two counties north, I found another old brewery hiding in plain sight.
On Poplar Street close to the Great Miami River, what remains of the once-prominent John Wagner Sons Brewing Co. lurks undercover as a storage building for Sidney Public Schools. Sidney was once famous for its Wagner cooking ware, but a branch of the Wagner family also operated a brewery there from as early as 1850. The brewery prospered until the early 1900s.
It isn't the brewery but another structure that testifies to the wealth that brewing once generated in Sidney.
Up the street from the brewery site stands the home of John Wagner (1834-188,) built in the 1860s with money from Wagner's brewery. It's now the home of the Aspen Family Center, which has preserved the house's Victorian splendor.
In Xenia, meanwhile, the Hollencamp brewery is long gone. Its only reminder the once-opulent house at 339 E. 2nd St., built on the north side of the brewery by Bernard Hollencamp (1913-1872.) While the house earned inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places, it's now boarded up and in decay. It's a sad, tattered postcard from the Miami Valley's brewing past—still salvageable, but sliding quietly toward oblivion.
You'll find more stories about the Miami Valley's old breweries and their brewers in my book. Pre-order it now at Amazon.com.
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| Map of old Dayton breweries. Composite graphic by Timothy R. Gaffney, with 1875 and 1869 maps. |
But when I went looking for them, I found very few still standing. In most cases, newer buildings, parks or parking lots had replaced them. Some had burned. Some had been torn down. Those that survived were masquerading as other kinds of buildings, their histories generally unknown.
 |
| Sachs-Pruden brewery in Dayton. Photo by Timothy R. Gaffney |
A rare exception is the former Sachs-Pruden brewery at 120 S. Patterson Blvd. Edward Sachs (1851-1901) and David Pruden (1855-1910) built it with great expectations, commissioning the prominent Dayton architectural firm Peters and Burns (later Peters, Burns & Pretzinger) and pouring $150,000 into its construction, according to an 1893 Dayton Daily News report. It towered over the canal where South Patterson now runs and featured a 300-barrel brew kettle.
But its business failed after a few years. The Lowe Brothers Paint Company bought it in 1920, and later the Hauer family restored it for use as a music store. It's now the Dayton Metro Library's administration center.
 |
| Remaining building of the Olt Brothers brewery on N. McGee Street. Photo by Timothy R. Gaffney |
A long. two-story building with an ornate facade at the southwest corner of Second and McGee is a former horse stable of the Olt Brothers brewery. Incorporated in 1906, it brewed until 1940, surviving prohibition with dairy products and Polar Distilled Water. In 2018, Warped Wing Brewing revived its once-popular Superba brand with a hoppy pilsner of the same name.
Two counties north, I found another old brewery hiding in plain sight.
 |
| Part of the Wagner brewery in Sidney, Shelby County. Photo by Timothy R. Gaffney |
On Poplar Street close to the Great Miami River, what remains of the once-prominent John Wagner Sons Brewing Co. lurks undercover as a storage building for Sidney Public Schools. Sidney was once famous for its Wagner cooking ware, but a branch of the Wagner family also operated a brewery there from as early as 1850. The brewery prospered until the early 1900s.
It isn't the brewery but another structure that testifies to the wealth that brewing once generated in Sidney.
 |
| John Wagner House in Sidney. Photo by Timothy R. Gaffney |
Up the street from the brewery site stands the home of John Wagner (1834-188,) built in the 1860s with money from Wagner's brewery. It's now the home of the Aspen Family Center, which has preserved the house's Victorian splendor.
 |
| Hollencamp House in Xenia. Photo by Timothy R. Gaffney |
In Xenia, meanwhile, the Hollencamp brewery is long gone. Its only reminder the once-opulent house at 339 E. 2nd St., built on the north side of the brewery by Bernard Hollencamp (1913-1872.) While the house earned inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places, it's now boarded up and in decay. It's a sad, tattered postcard from the Miami Valley's brewing past—still salvageable, but sliding quietly toward oblivion.
You'll find more stories about the Miami Valley's old breweries and their brewers in my book. Pre-order it now at Amazon.com.
If the Olt Brewery building at McGee and E. 2nd was the horse stable, where was the brewery itself? My great grandfather worked at Olt’s pretty much for it’s entire existence and he lived on E. 2nd just two houses away from the stable, which I was told was the brewery.
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