Hammond Wisconsin. A Lost Brewery? And a forgotten graveyard.

My postings on Forgotten Brewery caves have become less frequent.  Oh, my part of the world once had hundreds of them.  The easy ones I have already covered.  Some of the big urban ones I do know about but prefer not to discuss because I don't want to point out any sites that might lead to injury or incarceration.  Many of the smaller caves from rural brewery sites have just vanished.

Take Hammond Wisconsin.  It is a hamlet about 20 miles from the Wisconsin/Minnesota border.  This was just far enough from the big breweries in Hudson and Stillwater that a small operation existed in Hammond for a few years in the late 1870s.  Location?  Unclear, it does not show on any map I know of.

But recently an acquaintance told me that his uncle was from Hammond and used to refer to an area on the south side of town as "Brewery Hill".

That was enough to warrant a quick side trip there recently.  Using the customary template for finding brewery sites (hillside, stream, road access, near or better yet just outside those pesky city limits) I spotted this.

Although heavily remodeled the grey house has a peculiar central chimney.  It reminded me of a 19th century brewery building.  But to be fair this style of building was also sometimes built as a house in the early 20th century.  The taller of the nondescript white buildings on the hill is also a potential candidate.  The odds of a small brewery building surviving from that era are actually much improved by the fact that it was only in use for a few years.  So many of these early wooden breweries went up in flames regularly.

But what I am fairly sure of is that the hillside between these two buildings is dimpled with a couple of areas that look very much like collapsed brewery caves.  

Now I must admit I had been through Hammond a couple of years earlier.  I had  rejected this location for an early brewery for the simple reason that a church and cemetery were very near by.  Even in Germanic communities putting the church next to the brewery would be a bit edgy.  And a grave yard could serve as a stark reminder that an excess of alcohol is not all that good for you. Now that I think of it the separation of breweries and cemeteries probably goes way, way back.  Just imagine the water quality near medieval burying grounds!

But when I went back to my sources I found an 1876 map that showed something interesting.

Alas, the brewery is not shown.  It should be just north of the railroad (the line with alternating light and dark bars) and about half way between the depot and the main north south street.   

But if you look up a bit you can see a cross just above the L. Davis property.  This then is the original 1870's cemetery for Hammond.  The cemetery near the potential brewery site seems to be twenty years newer and must have been started long after the brewery closed.

Of course I will be by for a closer look at the cemetery next trip through.