Forgotten Brewery Caves - Osceola Wisconsin

From 1867 to 1878 (or by another source 1882) a man named Veit Geiger operated a brewery in the river town of Osceola Wisconsin.  Geiger was an early pioneer of the area working first in a brick yard, later as a farmer before starting his brewery.  He was also a Civil War veteran, serving in the famous Iron Brigade.

The ruins of the brewery can still be seen.

Of course with a brewery of this era there are caves.  In this case a little to the right and up the hill from this view.  When the brewery was in operation they would have been just out the door of the second story.  So, up a little path and we find....

Nicely bricked up and secure.  Just a little to the left of this is another cave entrance. This one is hard to see, but the tip off is this broken bit of archway laying on the ground.

You learn to look for these sneaky little hollowed out spaces.  Not really accessible, but certainly enough to take the traditional flash picture at arms length...

Notice that there is a pair of glasses visible just to the left of that bit of metal tubing.  Yes, I leaned over a little too far taking this one and they fell out of my pocket.  Sigh. Well, in the line of duty I have become fairly proficient at retrieving odd things from odd places, so it was not all that difficult to fashion a stick into a spelunkoscopic device and fish the darned things out. Reminds me, I should probably do a week of medical posts even though they seem to be largely ignored by the blogosphere at large.

If you visit...

Lets assume you can find Osceola, it is on the maps.  It is a small town, so finding the BP gas station should pose no challenge.  The brewery site is actually behind the gas station at the base of the bluff atop which sits a water tower.  The caves are up a small path going to the right.