Forgotten Brewery Caves - Bloomington Normal IL (Part Two)

And now for the "other" brewery in Bloomington Illinois.

While researching the brewery cave under Forrest Park I kept running across confusing references.  They were also of a cave, under a park on the south side, and one that was beloved of generations of exploring young people.

It was not the same location.  But close.

The Meyer Brewing Company was located off South Main Street on a site now occupied by the Highland Park Golf Course.  It was established in 1862 as a partnership of Anton Meyer with a man named Wochner.  They built a substantial brewery.

A Sanborn fire map from the 1890s even shows the location of the brewery cave.  It would be extending back from junction of the two buildings seen above. Note also the large pond in front of the brewery.  This was created by building a dam across a small creek.  In the photo above a cow is standing in the shallows.  It is interesting to compare photo and map.  The two cisterns are probably covered by the little wooden structure in front of the brewery.  A direct run in and out of the storage cave no doubt accounts for the arched doorway on the right side of the shorter building.  The less you need to maneuver kegs and blocks of ice the happier you would be.  The wooden lean to on the taller building is even shown.  Sanborn fire insurance maps may not have always shown caves, but they were very detailed with regards to things that might start on fire and with sources of water for the fire department.

After the brewery went out of business the cave remained a popular place with local young folks.  I even found a reference to a Boy Scout troop visiting it on a hike....with one of the Scout leaders dressing up as a ghost so as to jump out and scare them!

When Prohibition ended brewing operations in 1920 the land was bought by the city who built a golf course on the site.  The bricks from the main buildings were widely reused for local projects.  The brewery cave, or perhaps, caves, lingered on a while. In a March 1931 edition of the local paper the following account of their demise is recorded.

Numerous Improvements Are Being Made at Municipal Golf Course

"Those cavernous holes in the cliff at Highland park are gone.  Vacant sockets which had been an eye-sore to golfers, openings of former underground beer cellars used when the park was the site of the old Meyer brewery, have been covered with dirt. The dirt will be allowed to settle, be evenly sloped, and sown with grass."

"The work has included draining of the brewery pond, razing of the old smoke stack, filling in half of the pond, and new bridges for the stream; building of a stone entrance, curb and tarvia road to the club house...."

"The old cellars were once used for aging beer.  Later they became romantic haunts of boys.  Now that they are gone, the only beer cave left near the city is the one of the old Stein brewery in Stein's grove now Forest park."

A few parting thoughts.  If you have followed over from the previous posting on the Stein brewery cave you might be distracted by the seemingly random use of Forest and Forrest in describing the park it lies in.  Forrest seems correct but contemporary sources are just random in this regard.  I am not optimistic that traces of the Meyer brewery cave can still be seen.  Google Earth shows extensive landscaping of the area.  There really does not even seem to be much of a "cliff" left.  Golf courses tend to be pretty active when it comes to remodeling nature.

On the other hand, there are two buildings from the brewery still standing.  A large maintenance building and a smaller pro shop date back to the latter days of the Meyer enterprise, although I don't think either show on the map or photo above.