As you'd correctly guess from its name, the little town of Kiel, Wisconsin was settled mostly by Germans. I stopped in on my fall road trip and found an assortment of interesting things. None perhaps quite sufficient for a stand alone post but in aggregate a fascinating picture. Breweries, tombstones....and a machine gun.
Breweries
Gutheil Brothers
Dates are a bit "squishy" but the Gutheil brewery seems to have been Kiel's first, starting in 1858. It was outside of town and on a nice convenient hill. It is said that the Gutheil brothers made an excellent product, perhaps too much quality for the modest prices they charged. $5 for a 32 gallon barrel and a nickel to fill a pitcher sure sounds reasonable. The brewery topped off at a production level around 670 barrels a year in 1879. An old settler named John Schroeder recalled in 1928, that the Gutheils "....used to have various-sized glasses, too. There was the largest size called the Plattdeutscher Schmitt, and the square Mecklenburger Schmitt...".
The brothers Gutheil moved on to other ventures in the late 1880's, with 1887 likely the terminus for this venture. The brewery building was torn down in the early 1900's and a brick house built on the foundations. It is said that evidence of its prior use can be seen in the basement....
Here's the site in late 2019. The brick house stands strong. All sorts of odd lumps and bumps in the hillside behind could be anything from vanished outbuildings to modern septic tanks. I'm assuming there was once a stone arch style cave extending straight back from the brewery site.
The Dimmler Brewery
Dimmler, Duseler, Dimmel, even the name of the proprietor is obscured by the passage of time and the mutability of German spellings. The brewery probably got started in 1859 but given its prime location a small scale operation preceding this would not be surprising. The location was, in modern terms, 28 East Fremont. The same gentleman named Schroeder quoted above, had some recollections of this establishment too. It is said that a cellar was excavated, with dimensions of 22 feet by 23 feet by 18 feet. This too would suggest an arched construction and other than the unusual height would fit a small brewing operation.
The Dimmler brewery supposedly made even better beer than the Gutheils. They had a few advantages there. The water they used was said to be superior and being right next to the mill pond they would have had all the ice they needed. (Schroeder claims that the cellar kept the beer cold without it but with a presumed length of only 23 feet that's unlikely).
But the venture was not a success, going out of business in 1872. Local competition, financial difficulties and an on site stabbing contributed. Part of the building became The German Drug Store and later the Riverside Grocery. The latter business apparently kept using the cellar for storage. The building was damaged by fire in 1999 and razed in 2000. Until fairly recently the cellars were said to be intact and even after the building was demolished a mound of earth marked their location somewhere near a house at 20 East Fremont. Alas, today a new housing complex has removed all traces.
Early breweries had assorted outbuildings and spread out over multiple lots, so there is a small chance that this stone structure behind 10 East Fremont might be related to the earlier enterprise.
Tree Shaped Tombstones
German and other central European communities seem to have a fondness for these elaborate monuments. So I had considerable hopes when walking about a little hillside cemetery in Kiel. I only found one, but it is an oddity.
Nicely executed work, love the little acorns. This is the only example I've seen that represents two families. They must have been closely aligned by business or family tree connections. Ruhestaedte means "resting place". The conjoined AE is also peculiar, I think I've seen it once or twice on Norwegian tombstones but never German.
Standing Guard
Down the hill from the cemetery is a little park with the not uncommon dedication to local veterans. These places often have assorted martial hardware on display either US surplus or captured enemy weapons. Here we see something interesting.
This is an impressively well preserved German machine gun of the M1908 variety. The plate with the serial number indicates it was made in 1918, and so was perhaps captured by American troops late in the war. Were they lads from Kiel? If so, did they feel conflicted on any level regards fighting against men who were culturally closer to them than many of their fellow citizens? If such attitudes existed back then they have not been recorded in any public fashion I've run across.
For now the old machine gun is keeping a wary vigil. That red roof in the distance is a Dairy Queen and you just know they are up to something....
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