A Brewery in Downsville Wisconsin?

A little history detective work today.

Wisconsin had many small time breweries in the 19th century.  They peaked in the 1870s.  Before that the population was not big enough to support a lot of them.  And after that the big breweries started to consolidate the market due to advances such as mechanical refrigeration and efficient rail delivery of product to distant locations.  In fact the total number of breweries in the United States topped out in 1873 at 4131 a number that was not equaled until a much larger population and the felicitous development of craft microbreweries put us back over the top in 2015.

Some early Wisconsin breweries were run as sidelines by farmers, and existed solely to supply local needs.  They were small time operations and their exact number is unknown, as early records are sketchy and some of these farmer-brewers might not have been all that motivated to make themselves known to the tax man.   

One place that a small brewery is known to have operated is outside the little town of Downsville Wisconsin in Dunn County.

Our starting point is the remarkably erudite Wisconsin's Frontier Farm Breweries, by Wayne Kroll.  He identifies - presumably by tax records - a brewery owned by a John Scheibly located at "Downsville PO".  No date is given.

While researching another topic I found the second clue.  An ad that ran repeatedly in the Dunn County News offered the following:  

 FOR SALE

The undersigned offers for sale the Brewery Place, one half mile south of Downsville, comprising 40 acres of land, two dwelling houses and the brewery building.  Low price and easy terms.  Inquire of A.S. TIBBETTS.

                                                                             Downsville, Dunn Co., Wis

Oct 23, 1878

The next clue also came from the pages of the Dunn County News.  The edition of July 12th, 1879 recounts events of a terrible flood on July 2nd.

"Caspar Blatter and his wife Anna lived near the mouth of a small creek that comes into the Red Cedar about a quarter of a mile below that place (Downsville). "  They were.."swept away with their dwelling and drowned.  Nothing is left to mark the place where they lived, barn, out houses and even land all gone".

A bit further up the creek the residence of E.L. Livingstone was also destroyed with the family narrowly escaping.  It is also mentioned that "The brewery situated on the stream a short distance above Livingstone's was also taken away."

That really should be enough to pin down the location of the brewery with some accuracy.  Find a creek just down stream from Downsville.  See if you can find a spot half a mile south of the village that is on the creek.  Bonus points if you can identify the residence of Livingstone, Tibbetts or Blatter.  Here we go:

Not a great visual, this is a copy of a copy of an 1877 plat.  I've outlined in red the area that shows the creek and the property of A.S. Tibbetts.  The A. Tibbets just to the south was a relative.  The Blatter property at the mouth of the creek is not shown, nor is there any mention of a Livingstone....although there are several structures near the one marked Hotel that are candidates.  The brewery would likely be on the NW corner of the A.S. Tibbetts property, possibly but not certainly where the black dot is seen.

Here is a later map, undated but probably 1900 - 1905.  Notice that the channel of the river has shifted a bit.  And I think the creek is drawn more accurately.

A.S. Tibbetts is gone - he died in 1880 - and the property formerly labeled as his now seems to belong to an Emma Shafer.  The dotted line is now County Road C, just south of the junction with County Z.  The little cemetery on C is useful landmark.  It would seem logical that the brewery site would be on the creek just west of C, although whether it would be north or south of the creek is hard to say.  I'm guessing south.

A brewery in 1878 needed several things.  Grain.  Not a problem in rural Dunn County. Clean water.  Well, they sure ended up having plenty of that.  A hillside in which to excavate a lagering cave.  And road access.  Grain, kegs of beer, heavy stuff.  No, I'd say just off the west side of County Road C would be our spot.

Shall we take a look?

Oh, my.  Some very dramatic cliffs that you'd not expect viewing from the road.  A delightful hidden place with the creek running merrily through it.

OK, now I can see why they chose to build the brewery here.  Not the greatest stone for excavating a cave, but pretty good.  Better than what you'll find in the village of Downsville proper.

With reports of flood conditions sufficient to wipe out entire farmsteads I was not expecting to find brewery foundations.  But I did find these random hunks of cement.  Probably newer but honestly I don't see any structures anywhere near this stuff.  So where did it come from?

Putting all the clues together I'd say the picture below is the "Brewery Place" mentioned in the ad.  It has the necessary ingredients.  Flat land that could be reached via a road.  Proximity to the stone cliffs shown above.  A decent slope that could be used for the traditional "gravity feed" that brought grain down to a brewing floor.  And it looks like a place where somebody could imagine they were close enough to the water to be convenient but not close enough to be at risk.  Umm....

Note that the 1877 map is indeed less accurate than the later one.  I'd put this on the former A.S. Tibbetts property but on the south fork of the creek that is not shown on the earlier plat.  Looking at those cliffs I can confidently say this was not a new channel for the stream, rather a cartographer's error.

No trace of the brewery or its cave, although a revisit when all the leaves are down might show a bit more.