Historic Structures

Gipfel Brewery - Union Brewery, Milwaukee Wisconsin

A nineteenths-century historian, whose account may well have been based on conversations with Charles Gipfel, states that the first Gipfel brewery building on this site was erected in 1843, but that the present one was constructed ten years later. The building was constructed either for David Gipfel or for his older son Carl Wilhelm (Charles). Family ownership of the property dates back to June 30, 1843, when David Gipfel purchased the lot from Daniel and Cordelia Brown for $400.00. He added adjoining property to his holdings with the purchase from Harvey Birchard on November 25, 1845. It is documented that the Gipfels operated a small brewery on this site during the 1840's. By 1851 at the latest, Charles Gipfel had assumed control of the firm, which he called the Union Brewery, and he remained in business here through the late nineteenth century--at various times as a brewer, a saloonkeeper, and a dealer in wine and liquor.

Arlington Place - Munger Mansion, Birmingham Alabama

The land and area that surrounds what is now Arlington House was originally deeded by Captain William Ely to the newly created Jefferson County. As an agent for the Deaf and Dumb Asylum in Hartford, Connecticut, he came to Alabama with the intent of building a school on the present site of the house. Originally know as Frog level, the State Legislature renamed the area Elyton in honor of Captain William Ely. Once Elyton was incorporated, it was established in 1820 as the seat of Jefferson County. At this time the courthouse was removed from Carrollsville, near the present Town of Powderly, to the more centrally located Elyton. This is where it remained until Birmingham was founded. An early report on courthouses in Alabama describes the placement of Elyton: Elyton was the crossing place of two important stage lines connecting north and south Alabama and eastern and western parts of the state. Later progress brought the crossing of two railroads to this area and it was this connection which led to the creation of the City of Birmingham. Two portions of the original land grant were purchased by William 0. Tarrant on February 19, 1821, and John Burford, Jr. & Sr., on March 5, 1821. One year later in 1822, Stephen Hall purchased both, constituting approximately 475 acres of land.

Montpelier - Snowden House, Laurel Maryland

Montpelier is by far the grandest of the many Snowden family homesteads built in the Laurel area from the time of the first Snowden settler, ca. 1690, to the late-18th century. A wealthy, Quaker family, they developed and dominated the local economy for over a century. Richard Snowden, later referred to as Richard the immigrant, came from Birmingham, England, to Maryland ca. 1658. He later received grants of land in this area, settling on a portion of it (located in the current Howard County) ca. 1690. His residence was known as Birmingham Manor for his original home. Upon his death, the Birmingham Manor property passed on to his son, Richard Snowden II, also known as Captain Richard Snowden. Richard continued to increase the family landholdings here until they totalled approximately 27,000 acres spanning Prince Georges, Montgomery, Anne Arundel and Howard counties. It was Richard II that started the Snowden or Patuxent Iron Works in 1735, was the first iron works in the state. His property upon his death was passed on to his son, Richard III, often referred to as the Iron Master. From him, that portion of the extensive Snowden family holdings on which Montpelier was to be erected passed onto one of his sons, Thomas. Thomas Snowden I (1722-1770) was, for many years, credited with the construction of Montpelier, originally believed to have been erected ca. 1740. However, architectural historians now believe that, based on the style and detailing of the house, it was built between 1770-1785. The two firebacks in the house give the date of 1783, which may have been the official year of completion of the main block of the house. The hyphenated wings were added later, in 1794-1795.

Gunston Hall, Mason Neck, Lorton Virginia

Gunston Hall was the home of George Mason, gentleman, planter, and constitutional theorist, a man as influential as any other in building the theoretical underpinnings of the American Revolution and of the Constitution of 1787. He was a model member of the landed gentry, serving on the bench, in the parish vestry, in the Assembly, as well as in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. George Mason (1725-1792) was the fourth of that name and line in Virginia, his forebearer having settled on 900 acres in the Northern Neck of Virginia on a grant dated 1655. By the time the fourth George Mason came into his inheritance, there were 5,000 acres in the estate. Because of the early death of his father, he was under the guardianship of his mother, Ann Thomson Mason, and his uncle, John Mercer of Marlborough. Mason's early years were spent in Mercer's library which was rich in the law, accounting for Mason's wide legal knowledge throughout his later career.

Brice House, Annapolis Maryland

The Brice House was constructed in 1766-73 for Colonel James Brice, who was soon to gain fame as a soldier during the Revolution. The architect is unknown but there is evidence that William Buckland, who arrived in Annapolis in 1771 and died in 1774, worked on the interiors of the house. The residence remained in the possession of the Brice heirs until 1874. After passing through the hands of several owners, the house was purchased by St. John's College in the 1920s and used as a faculty residence. The building was acquired by Mr. and Mrs. Stanley S. Wohl in 1953 and carefully restored between 1953 and 1957. Standing on a high terrace above the street, the Brice House is a fivepart composition 156-feet long. It is comprised of a two-and-a-halfstory central block over an elevated basement--about 52-feet wide and 45-feet deep—two one-and-a-half-story hyphens, each 27-feet long and 18-feet deep, and two symmetrical one-and-a-half-story wings, each 26-feet wide and 45-feet deep, built at right angles to the main axis. The end wings project about 22-feet forward (south) of the street facade of the main block. Each section has a steep gable roof; the roofs of the hyphens and end wings are dormered. At each end of the central block a wide, chimney rises high above the roof, capped with a corbelled brick course. The wings also have a set of wide, thin, but lower chimneys.

Hammond-Harwood House, Annapolis Maryland

Chase Lloyd House, Annapolis Maryland

Filoli - Bourn-Roth Estate, Woodside California

William Bowers Bourn II, the original owner of Filoli, was born in San Francisco in 1857. Following his father's death in 1874, he developed the family's Empire Mine at Grass Valley. Bourn married and had two children, a son who died in infancy and a daughter, Maud, who died in 1929, leaving two children from her marriage. Bourn became president of the San Francisco Gas Company and the Spring Valley Water Company. The large Greystone Winery near St. Helena in Napa County was also built for him. Mr. Bourn later bought the fabled Lakes of Killarney, a 16,000-acre Muchross estate in Ireland for his daughter and son-in-law. In 1932 this was donated to the Irish Free State. William Bourn was confined to his estate after being stricken with paralysis in 1922. Bourn was a philosopher who extolled the virtues of constructive conservatism and the works of Goethe and Browning. Under titles like Thoughts on Character, Bourn wrote articles for his company's periodicals.

Dungeness - Carnegie Family Mansion, St Marys - Cumberland Island Georgia

This mansion was built in 1884 as the Carnegie Family (of Carnegie Steel) Retreat. The home measures approximately 120 feet by 50 feet and is two and a half stories. The estate included a large recreation building with a swimming pool and various game rooms. Stables, water tower, barns and tenant houses were also on the property. Cumberland Island, Georgia's largest barrier island, has a long history entwined with its many different inhabitants. Evidence endures in a variety of remains and ruins, which are open to the public visitation via the National Park Service. The Dungeness ruins is what is left of a 59-room mansion built by Thomas Carnegie (brother of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie) and his wife Lucy in the 1880s. This mansion was part of a large and lavish winter estate for the Carnegie family, which included pools, a golf course, and 40 smaller buildings. A fire in 1959 reduced the mansion to ruins.

Wisconsin Central Freight Station (Chicago Great Western), Minneapolis Minnesota

Because the riverfront in Minneapolis along the Mississippi River was crowded with existing railroad tracts and industrial buildings by the late nineteenth century, the Wisconsin Central Railway Company, which was desirous of trackage into the city had few choices of where to build facilities in Minneapolis. The Wisconsin Central Company, a predecessor of the Wisconsin Central Railway Company, had been operating in Wisconsin between northern Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and Chicago since 1870 hauling timber and ore from northern Wisconsin to market cities on Lake Michigan. After financial difficulties in the 1890s, it was reorganized between 1898-1900 as the Wisconsin Central Railway Company. It owned only 28 miles of trackage in Minnesota. The Wisconsin Central Railway Company had been leasing the rails of Minnesota carriers, such as the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern, to ship cattle from Montana and grain and flour from the Twin Cities through Minneapolis and St. Paul to Manitowoc, Milwaukee, and Chicago. Although this arrangement worked well, high trackage rentals and increasing business prompted the Wisconsin Central Railway Company in 1901 to build terminal facilities of its own in Minneapolis and St. Paul. The company, therefore, acquired two Minneapolis parcels for their use near the Mississippi River. Between 1901-1903, it built a large yard terminal on Boom Island north of Nicollet Island nearby the present freight station. The Boom Island yard was improved from low swampy land in the middle of the river. Improvements included fill, a stone retaining wall around the island, a rail yard which could accommodate over 300 cars, a roundhouse, coaling plant, ice houses, and limited repair facilities.

Wiessner Brewery - American Brewery, Baltimore Maryland

In 1853, ten years prior to the American Civil War, John F. Weissner (1831- 1897) arrived from Uhlfeld, Bavaria. He worked for several years in Baltimore before being hired to work at the brewery owned by George Rost. This is where Weissner became a brewmaster along side of his brother-in-law George Baurenschmidt, who would later prosper with his own brewery. In In 1862 Weissner returned to Bavaria to discuss with his family the plans to open his own brewery. A year later he returned with some money and family approval to build his own brewery. Levi and Henry Strauss, then in the malting business, extended Weissner credit for starting up his. Weissner opened his brewery, in 1863, and added his brewery to the twenty-one already in operation throughout Baltimore. The brewery was built on part of the estate known as Greenwood, originally established by Philip Rogers in 1807. It was Charles Rogers, grandson of Philip, who leased Weissner two acres and a dairy farm for his brewery site, which fronted Belair Avenue. It is reported that the brewery skirmished with Union soldiers who mooched the beer being produced.

Wiedemann Brewing Company, Newport Kentucky

The Wiedemann Brewing Company was founded by George Wiedemann. He immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1853. Initially living in New York State and after spending some time in Louisville, Kentucky, he moved to Cincinnati in 1855 when he entered the brewery business. In 1860, Mr. Wiedemann joined with John Kaufman in building a brewery on Vine Street in Cincinnati where he was appointed the foreman. In 1870 he became a partner with John Butcher, who was operating a small brewery on Jefferson Street in Newport, Kentucky. The business began to grow and soon became recognized as a major brewery in northern Kentucky and Cincinnati. In 1878 Wiedemann acquired the entire brewery and he continued to expand its operation. Over the years various buildings were constructed to meet the needs of the growing operation. In 1888 and 1889 construction of modern facilities was undertaken when several buildings were constructed including the Hops Storage building and the Malt House. With increase production capacity, the brewery began to command a greater share of the market. During the period before the turn of the century, Wiedemann acquired several smaller breweries. With these acquitions, the brewery established itself as the major brewery serving northern Kentucky. During the years, Mr. Wiedemann brought his two son's into the business. His eldest son, Charles, was sent to Munich in 1876-77 to learn the latest European brewing techniques. Upon his return, he was sent to Milwaukee to learn the developing brewing techniques being undertaken by America's leading brewers. He rejoined his father as Superintendent, then as Vice-President. With the death of his father, he was appointed President in 1890. He continued the distinctive brewing tradition with increased modernization, establishment of new markets, and attention to the quality of the beer.

Minneapolis Brewing Company - Grain Belt Brewery, Minneapolis Minnesota

In 1850, German immigrant John Orth established a brew house near the Mississippi River at the corner of Marshall Street and 13th Avenue NE in the rapidly expanding lumber city of St. Anthony (later Minneapolis). By the time Minnesota achieved statehood in 1858 eleven breweries were conducting business around the state. Two of these were located very close to Orth's company and became his major rivals: Gluek's Brewery had opened just one-half mile north on Marshall Street, and the Krazlein and Mueller Brewery was in business across the river. The establishment of these and other breweries (such as the Sugar Loaf Brewery in Winona, 1860, the August Schell Brewing Company in New Ulm, 1860, and Wolf's Brewery in Stillwater, 1872), reflected the industry's regional growth throughout the Upper Midwest. Expansion of the brewing industry was largely due to an influx of German immigrants who brought a strong brewing tradition and the requisite skills to such cities as Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Minneapolis. An 1862 federal brewing tax, however, adversely impacted the industry, forcing many smaller breweries to close or become absorbed by more successful companies. Between 1880-90, beer production nationwide increased 81 percent, yet the number of breweries decreased 43 percent from 2,191 to 1,248. Consistent with this trend, the Minneapolis Brewing and Malting Company was established in 1890 by the merger of four small Minneapolis breweries: the John Orth Brewing Co., the Heinrich Brewing Association, the Germania Brewing Co., and the F.D. Norenburg Brewing and Malthouse. By 1893, the Minneapolis Brewing and Malting Company adopted the Grain Belt beer label in reference to ...the golden fields of Minnesota ...the tall corn of Iowa...the vast reaches of the Dakotas...the green acres of Wisconsin!...America's Grain Belt. Construction of the brewery complex on Orth's property dramatically boosted the firm's production capacity around the state and region. The company was brewing 500,000 barrels annually by 1900, far greater than Gluek's output of 70,000, and quite respectable in comparison with the nation's leading producers - Milwaukee's Pabst and Schlitz - which had surpassed one million barrels a year.

Gebhard Brewery, Morris Illinois

The Gebhard Brewery consists of the Brewing House and Warehouse Building and the Bottling Plant. The Brewing House and Warehouse Building was erected about 1896 with additions constructed over the next decade. The Brewing House section rises four stories in height and, like the rest of the building, contains a steel frame with common-bond brick walls. The Brewing House and Warehouse Building measures approximately 80' x 60'. None of the brewing equipment remains. The Bottling Plant was erected ca. 1900 and consists of a two-and-one-half-story brick building with an interior wood frame. The building measures approximately 60' x 30' and has a gable roof and a stone foundation. Originally a one-and-one-half story brick building, the Gebhard Brewery, located on West Washington Street near Nettle Creek, was started in 1866 by Louis Gebhard. Gebhard's enterprise was successful, and by 1896 he had erected a large brick and steel building to replace the original building. The new building contained a large brewing room complete with a copper vat. Grain was prepared on the upper floors of the five-story brewing house. Less than ten years later a large brick and steel addition was built off the north facade of the brewing house. Another addition to the brewery, built at the same time, consisted of a two-and-one-half story brick and timber building which served as a bottling plant. William Gebhard succeeded his father in the business and used the wealth generated by the brewery to construct homes and commercial buildings in Morris. The Gebhard family eventually had the most extensive land holdings in the town.

Gluek Brewing Company Hotel and Saloon, Minneapolis Minnesota

Two of the largest brewing firms in Minneapolis produced beer and ran combination saloons and lodging houses at the turn of the century. Both the Minneapolis Brewing Company and the Gluek Brewing Company controlled the market on Minneapolis' East Side in 1904. Gluek Brewing Company employed sixty men and had an annual output of 75,000 barrels from its Minneapolis brewery at 2002 Marshall Avenue N.E. The much larger Minneapolis Brewing Company employed over 200 men and annually produced 250,000 barrels of beer in Minneapolis. In addition to its brewing business, Gluek Brewing Company owned retail outlets and held licenses to operate neighborhood bars and lodging houses in Minneapolis, such as the location at 24 Hennepin Avenue. In one type of company operation, Gluek would loan money to retail liquor dealers and take their licenses as security. The building at 24 Hennepin Avenue was erected by Gluek in 1914 to replace the previous building which the company bought in 1905 and operated as the Bridge Square Hotel on the upper two floors with a company-run saloon and pool hall on the first floor. An adjacent building to the east at 18-20 Hennepin Avenue was part of the same hotel operation. At the end of 1913, Gluek demolished their old building at 24 Hennepin Avenue and built the subject building, designed by Christopher A. Boehme, in early 1914.

Berman Buckskin Building - Home Insurance Company Building, Minneapolis Minnesota

Before the Home Insurance Company Building was constructed in late 1894 and early 1895, the comer of Hennepin A venue and North First Street was wellknown throughout the City of Minneapolis as the site of the city market. Harlow A. Gale's City Market was constructed here in 1876 from designs by Minneapolis architect LeRoy Buffington. Although Gale had a business on the corner as early as 1857, he did not own the site until 1873. The City of Minneapolis played a role in economic development at Bridge Square in the 1870s. Bridge Square was the area of lower Hennepin Avenue between the river and the junction of Hennepin and Nicollet avenues where the bridge crossed the Mississippi River into downtown Minneapolis. This 1854 suspension bridge, the first across the Mississippi River leading into Minneapolis down Hennepin Avenue, was a private venture, with shares sold to private local investors. These investors were compensated by the tolls collected. In 1876, the city built a second stone-towered suspension bridge to replace the original woodtowered suspension bridge. And it awarded a municipal franchise to Harlow A. Gale to construct a city market. The resulting City Market building functioned as the city market until its municipal franchise expired in 1891. The 1876 market building remained standing and vacant from 1892 until the fall of 1894 when it was torn down.

Fort Hill - McElhenny-Calhoun-Clemson House, Clemson South Carolina

The original owner was the Reverend James McElhenny, pastor of the Old Stone Church. Upon McElhenny's death, the house passed into the hands of Mrs. John Ewing Calhoun, John C. Calhoun's mother-in-law. From 1825 until 1836, John C. Calhoun rented the property from her and then gained full possession upon her death. Calhoun died in 1850, but the house remained in family possession. Notably, Calhoun's son-in-law, Thomas G. Clemson was owner from 1872-1888. In his will the property was given to the State of South Carolina for the establishment of an agricultural college. The will also stipulated that the house be preserved in perpetuity. The original ca. 1802 portion of the house was a simple four-room building with its front entrance on the north facade. During their years there, 1825-1850, the Calhouns enlarged the house to its present fourteen-room size, added the portico and porches, and reoriented the main entrance to the east. Many of these alterations were designed by Floride Bonneau Calhoun, Calhoun's wife. During the 1930's, the house ws restored by the South Carolina Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Transcontinential Terminus Train Depot, National City California

On June 15, 1868, Frank A. Kimball, a builder and contractor from New Hampshire met with Francois Pioche, the owner of Rancho de la Nacion. Kimball had moved west in 1861, first settling in San Francisco where he and his brothers enjoyed immense success in business. However, due to ill health, Frank had to seek warmer climates, and in 1868 he traveled to San Diego. While in San Diego, Kimball had the opportunity to view Rancho de la Nacion fronting on San Diego Bay. It was Kimball's belief that the rancho, with its miles of coastline and favorable climate, would be an ideal location for a new city. The rancho, an original Spanish land grant, had changed hands several times prior to Francois Pioche's ownership. Kimball purchased the land which included 23,623 acres and six miles of waterfront from Pioche for $30,000, and renamed his acquisition, The National Ranch.

Broad Street Train Station, Philadelphia Pennsylvania

North Philadelphia Railroad Train Station, Philadelphia Pennsylvania

At the turn of the century, the Pennsylvania Railroad was the largest railroad company in the country, challenged only by the New York Central. At one point, the Pennsylvania carried one out of every five passengers nationally. General freight accounted for much of the company's early business, but after the Civil War, revenue from passenger service increased to become a significant income source demanding more stations of increasingly high quality. Following the Civil War, established Philadelphia families came to firm control of the Railroad; one such leader was George B. Roberts (1833-1897), fifth president of the Pennsylvania. It was under his leadership that the Broad Street Station was constructed in 1881 and expanded in 1894. Commenced under his tenure was a significant program of capital improvements that included planning a new station at the important Germantown Junction.