BREWERY
ONCE A McGREGOR LANDMARK
by John R. Adney
McGregor -- Long ago, the tall brick chimney that
towered above the McGregor Brewery belched black smoke,
and steam-powered malt mills converted homegrown barley
into golden beer.
A landmark of early-day industry in the area, the
four-story stone and brick structure, with its ornate
cupola, was built by John L. Hagensick in 1845 at a cost
of $25,000.
Nestling against rugged sandstone bluffs, just a mile
north of town, the brewery employed ten people at peak
periods and turned out 10,000 barrels of frothy suds a
year.
Four huge caves, in which kegs of beer were stored on
wooden racks, were dug 60 feet into the bluffs behind the
brewery. The digging was done the hard way -- with pick
and shovel and black blasting powder. Then, the roofs and
walls of each cave were lined with limestone, quarried
south of town.
Hagensick's beer business boomed from the start. For more
than 40 years his beer was guzzled in every saloon for
miles around.
The brewery became a social center in the early days. The
beer garden and bowling alley that mushroomed up on the
shady hillside did a lively business.
Then, the boom was busted. Production fell to 4,000
barrels in 1880.
Larger and more efficient breweries, making Milwaukee and
Chicago the beer-brewing centers, were an important
factor in the decline of the McGregor Brewery.
In an impressive ceremony in the fall of 1888, Hagensick,
with his employees gathered around him, drove the bung in
the last keg of beer that was loaded on the horse-drawn
dlivery wagon.
Boiler fires were drawn and vats scrubbed for the last
time. Surplus kegs were stacked in neat rows on the first
floor. They were still there when the brewery was torn
down in 1930.
The shuttered cupola, perched high above the sheet metal
roof, was a pleasant place for sighseeing and
day-dreaming for a boy with nothing else to do.
|
