John Powell and George Laux started a short-lived brewery in Ahnapee in 1866. Ahnapee Brewery came next. Kewaunee County had other breweries in Casco, Tisch Mills, Red River and Kewaunee. Some folks made their own, but fortune smiled on Ahnapee.
On September 1, 1869, the Kewaunee Enterprise announced the good news: Stransky and Siederman were beginning a new foundation on the south bank of the Ahnapee River near the center of town and Ahnapee was going to have a brewery! Plans included a 36' x 50', two-story building with two cellars of 50' long and 100' long. Capacity - 2,000 barrels of beer - was the best part. According to the paper, the brewery would be Wisconsin's most substantial.
When the newly organized Ahnapee Record wrote about the brewery in 1873, it was with pride that it pointed out the, then, three-story building. Owned by Wojta Stransky, Franz Swaty and Co., the brewery was the largest brick building in the county, as the courthouse had not been totally completed. Ahnapee's large brick brewery seemed to have been furnished with everything anybody could possibly want except for an ice house which wasn't built until 1880.
Beer bottles, originally developed in Milwaukee, made their way to Ahnapee and the flourishing brewing business. It wasn't long before more Milwaukee product made its way north. Ahnapee Brewery's end came in the mid-1880s when owner John Skala moved the building's contents to Menominee. By then Rahr and Hagemeister beers had become quite popular. As a 1900 era Hagemeister ad points out, their product was "pure wholesome family and lager beer."
Some saw Temperance as a problem, but it really didn't have much effect on Kewaunee County. Following the Civil War, the Good Templers Lodge was established by a large number of influential Ahnapee men and women including Judge Charles Boalt, DeWayne Stebbins, Simon Hall and Rufus Wing who was known as an advocate of Temperance since his arrival in 1860. Lodge #111 was the village's first Temperance movement, giving parties and masquerades in addition to other entertainments. It was pointed out that in Sweden it was forbidden to purchase alcoholic beverages unless a food purchase was made at the same time. The idea did not catch on in Ahnapee. However, the Enterprise opined that the Temperance Lodge was a "good move and should be sustained." Cream City House host Charles Hennemann must have been a part of the movement as he pointed out in a February 12, 1875 Sturgeon Bay Advocate ad that his hotel was a Temperance House.
Temperance was not held in high esteem by the vast majority of county residents and the Lodge and its movement eventually faded from the scene, though as late as 1909 St. Patrick's Temperance Society existed in Casco.
Sometimes Lager and Pilsner needed a little something to go with the brew, and that was a good cigar. Before 1900, cigars were manufactured in Ahnapee by such makers as Boalt, Neuzil, Rosenberg, Hagman and Boehm, and they made news.
Numbers of cigars smoked in Ahnapee were felt to be overwhelming by the editors of the Sturgeon Bay Advocate. Readership was told in September 1884 that 3,500 cigars had been consumed in Ahnapee during the previous week. Anyone who thought about it would have realized such a thing was nearly impossible.
As surprising as it is today, Wisconsin had 27,000 acres devoted to growing tobacco in 1885. Mr. Bastar said the following May that he was constructing a small addition to his hotel for use as F. Rosenberg's cigar factory. It was announced in 1897 that William Boalt's cigar factory manufactured more cigars than any other factory on the peninsula. His brands included Lake Shore League, The Air Ship, The North Star - called "the great wonder" - and Boalt's Plantation. During the same year, Mr. Benoit opened a small factory on Steele and just after that, J.H. Hagman of Iron Mountain rented the small building on 3rd, just behind Mike Melchior's store, for use as his cigar factory and residence. Hagman's tobacco was known to be purchased in Milwaukee. A few years later, in 1907, John Boehm was manufacturing cigars on Mill Street.
The brewery came to an end in the mid-1880s. Cigar manufacturing faded years later. The old brewery building was used for a number of manufacturing ventures including washing machines and folding chairs, but nothing really stuck until Dr. Charles Stiehl, who had been manufacturing cherry wine, purchased the building and refurbished it to the gem it is today. Von Stiehl wines - favorites across the country - are manufactured in the building which is on the Historic Register. As for the cigar factories, most of the buildings remain as shops or residences without a clue suggesting of their former use.
Note: The Hagemeister ad was found in Commercial History of Algoma, WI Vol. 2.
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