Hudson Road Brewery, Menomonie WI - Part III

Louis Burkhardt sold the Hudson Road Brewery in 1912 to a certain Joseph Neidemair. It seems to have still been a going concern, even allowing for a bit of civic boosterism the amount of beer brewed was likely increasing in the later years of the enterprise.  And they still had big crowds of people coming out on the weekends.  I think the picnic ground/dance hall operation was a big part of their business and that the distance from town helped.

In fact, on one Saturday night in 1916 it is said that they had done "..a large business...many customers had been served."  The employees staffing the occasion closed up shop, went to a nearby house for a bit of their own celebration, and on emerging in the wee hours saw that the brewery was on fire.

The account of the fire is quite extensive and helps give a picture of the layout.  The blaze started on the north end of the main building, where a 16 horsepower engine and boiler were on the main floor and the big malting machine on the second level. This end was burned down to bare walls.  The center section was the main brewing area.  It too was heavily damaged with the big copper brew kettle and a huge iron vat crashing through the floor and being destroyed.  The south end was mainly ice storage and was less damaged.  A few adjacent frame buildings were spared as the fire department had been summoned by a telephone call from the Louis Burkhardt residence (likely his widow Emma calling) and turned up with a hand pump they used to spray water drawn from the nearby creek.  200 empty half barrels, $500 worth of malt and 250 barrels of beer valued at $1,600 were lost.  

Although he only had $10,000 insurance on a $20,000 loss Niedermair said he was going to rebuild.  But 1916 was a tough time to attempt this.  Temperance voices were starting to become louder and the raw materials needed were going to be hard to come by once the US entered World War One. Good luck finding a $2,000 copper kettle during wartime scrap drives. The Hudson Road Brewery had made their final batch of beer.  But there are a few footnotes to the story...

- Niedermair actually did do some rebuilding.  In part of the burned out brewery he restored a room that he used as a wholesale beer depot.  Previous customers were said to come from far and wide to purchase beer brewed in Chippewa Falls and Eau Claire.  Of course he didn't actually have a license to run this business and it was raided in 1917.

- In 1923 he did acquire a different sort of license....a marriage license.  His new bride?  Emma Burkhardt, widow of Louis.  Even though the brewery was no longer in operation that old German tradition of marrying the widow of the owner was sort of observed here....even if in an odd twist it was a former owner marrying the widow of the previous owner.  With no further information coming my way I'll just wish for them a long, happy life together.

I  hope to do a walk around of the site some time this year.  I figure my odds of getting a favorable reply will be better if I wait until quarantine is over so I don't have to come to their front door wearing a mask.  I figure there are 300,000 scorched bricks and possibly a brewery cave there someplace....

Stay tuned, lets hope for a Part IV!