Forgotten Brewery Caves - St. Cloud Minnesota

As a starting point for this one here is a picture:

It is from a 1949 newspaper article that is referenced in THIS more recent bit by a local media outlet up there, WJON.

In said article it offers several theories including brewery cave, sewer line and storage for river boats. The latter is implausible.  Warehouses were built from cheap and abundant wood and the river boat era in St. Cloud was quite brief.  Sewer line makes a little sense but the fact that this is on or near the site of an early brewery is telling. And who would make an 18 foot wide, 15 foot tall sewer main and not have an abundance of side passages and maps that show same?

On my first pass through this story I was prepared to "call" this as a probable brewery cave.  What you can see in this picture certainly looks like one.  And St. Cloud had several breweries in this general neighborhood.  But with my coffee cup in hand on a Saturday morning I took a closer look at early maps.  And began to have doubts.

It is difficult to even tell where this picture was taken.  The article references 5th Avenue North between 1st and 2nd Streets.  This is approximately the location of the City Water Department in the 1880s.  The Cathedral High School gymnasium mentioned is actually at the intersection of 4th St. and 6th Avenues North.

This is roughly the location of a creek that ran through this part of town in the 19th century, probably the location mentioned in the article as being the site of a storm drain construction in 1899.   

All three breweries were along the creek.  Here's two of them:

The one on the right is the Enderle Brewery referenced - I think incorrectly - in the article.  The third brewery was just a bit further downstream, closer to the river and really not far at all from the current location of the Cathedral gym.

This section of the map copy was a bit fuzzy, sorry.  But notice that as the creek runs past the Balder and Weber City Brewery it goes underground.  The notation is COV'D RAVINE.

I've decided that the tunnel uncovered in 1949 was probably a section of this covered ravine, either the part already enclosed in this 1884 map or presumably an extension of the tunnel in 1899.  Perhaps the City Water works was the ultimate destination? 

The fabulous St. Peter sandstone from which classic brewery caves are usually fashioned is not common this far north.  I read an explanation somewhere that the Mississippi River has been eroding a deep valley for geological eons.  The point at which the leading edge of the erosion is has of course moved.  In the puny span of time that is our history it has sat right at St. Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis. Downstream....steep cliffs of St. Peter sandstone.  Great for brewery caves.  Upstream, flat boring landscape.  Brewers often had to make do with lesser structures and/or above ground ice houses.

That having been said, there is a mention in Land of Amber Waters, that the earliest brewery in town - Kramer and Seberger - had brewery caves on the riverbank between 3rd and 4th street (probably South, it was not located near the other breweries).  As always, don't let the fascination of exploring lead to anything foolish.......