Forgotten Brewery Caves - Mason City Iowa.

Apologies in advance for a bit of confusion with the two brewery sites of Mason City Iowa.  I blame The Music Man.  More on that in a bit.

I've known about a site just north of Mason City for years but until recently never had reason to go there.  It is in the Lime Creek Nature Preserve.  It is not hard to find, just a gentle stroll down one of the walking paths.

Set into a hillside we find a classic brewery cave.  I did my best to get photos of the inside but the glaring sunshine coming in from the barred door and from an open vent above did make it hard going.  Here is the view straight in.  There is a blocked off door leading to another chamber that seems to be rubble filled.

And here's a detail of the wall to the right.  This shows the spot light effect coming down from the open vent.  It was 101 degrees in the shade that day.  Or would have been if there actually was any shade.  The chamber went about 40 feet to the left and had a similar wall.

I always like to give a bit of history in these posts, but for Mason City it is rather difficult going.  Breweries in Iowa led a precarious existence as state wide Prohibition laws kept popping up.  And in this town two breweries get a bit muddled up by local history sources.

This brewery was the Spring Brewery.  It was established in 1873 by Brahm and McDevitt.  A man named John Schafer from Wilmar Minnesota was also a partner circa 1876.  In 1879 Mason City passed a law outlawing beer sales, and the State of Iowa enacted general Prohibition just three years later.  The brewery seems to have gone under circa 1880.

This brewery is on the banks of the Winnebago River.  But this has not always been true.  The body of water was formerly called Lime Creek.  But enter from Stage Left a certain Meredith Wilson.  Wilson was a prolific song writer who based his 1957 Broadway play and subsequent 1962 film on his boyhood home of Mason City.  When "The Music Man" became a resounding success it was felt that River City actually needed, well, a River.  Lime Creek got renamed and promoted.   So any photos that claim to show the brewery on Lime Creek could be either the one shown above or another slightly earlier brewery in town proper (Mason City Brewery, Carolina Street and 4th St. NE).  With the landscape so altered at both places it is challenging to figure things out, but I think this is the ruins of the Spring Brewery  when some of the walls still stood.

As I mentioned this is in the Lime Creek Nature Preserve.  No entry fee.  They have done nice work in preserving the site including spending $12,000 to stabilize the roof of the brewery cave.  The cornerstone of the brewery with the 1873 date on it is on display in the Nature Center.