Courtesy of Dan Arbet
Lemp panoramic photograph
One of the difficulties of studying the architecture of the Lemp Brewery is the relatively few number of historic photographs surviving from the 19th century, or even the last years of its existence before Prohibition in the 20th. However, this week I had the incredible fortune of viewing a rare and never-before-published panoramic view of the Lemp Brewery from the late 1890s, owned by collector Dan Arbet. For the first time, we can see now-demolished buildings on the Lemp property, as well as the buildings that are still standing, but in their original form. By combining these images with fire insurance maps and newspaper articles, we can now learn even more about the final decades of William Lemp Sr.’s tenure as president before his tragic death in 1904.
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Courtesy of Dan Arbet
Detail of old grain elevator
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Courtesy of Stephen Walker
The malt house in a Lemp souvenir book, circa 1893
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A view of the brewery plant, showing the brewhouse addition and malt kiln
The first building of interest in Arbet’s panoramic photograph is the brewery’s first grain elevator. Look for its distinctive mansard roof and windowless clapboard façade in the center of the image. The grain elevator is logically connected by a new brick bay to the original malt house, built in 1874. Some of the earliest city records indicate that a permit was pulled on May 21, 1879, for a “1 Story Wood Elevator,” costing $30,000. Considering that the elevator was wood frame, this was substantially more expensive, proportionally, than the brick masonry structures built at the same time. The new brick bay, which consisted of a train tunnel that presumably allowed barley and hops to be unloaded right into the elevator (note the tower directly above the tunnel) matched the architecture of the malt house, but I admit to being a bit perplexed by the elevator’s appearance.
First, the elevator was built of wood, which seems so sloppy for the Lemps. Second, its Second Empire style is out of sync with the Renaissance Revival and Rundbogenstil branding typical of the rest of the complex. We may never know what William Lemp Sr. was thinking. The elevator was clearly still in operation in the 1890s souvenir book, and onward until the construction of the famous fireproof elevator on Lemp Avenue in the early 20th century.
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Courtesy of Dan Arbet
Detail of the old Adam Lemp mansion, malt kiln, and old malt house
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Courtesy of Stephen Walker
The malt house in a Lemp souvenir book, circa 1893
Looking to the left of the grain elevator, this is the only photographic image of the original malt house, and we have a much better view of the two chimneys on the recently expanded six-story malt kiln that I wrote about last week.
Courtesy of Stephen Walker
The old stock house as shown in the Lemp Souvenir Book, circa 1893
Not visible in Arbet’s panoramic photograph is the massive stock house built around this time. (I’m suspicious of the 1885 date commonly suggested by others.) I strongly suspect the stock house was designed by the engineer Theodore Krausch, the master of refrigeration, to fill in the space between his successful fermenting house and the malt kiln and elevator. I also doubt that Edmund Jungenfeld was involved with Krausch by then, as the two architects were confronting each other in litigation in 1882. While it is possible that they patched up their differences, I suspect some animosity remained. There does not seem to have been much fanfare in local newspapers or the Western Brewer, but this stock house is of critical importance for several reasons.
First, the building was constructed with no concern for the use of ice in the refrigeration of beer. It has but one basement floor, and does not extend deep into the earth as was commonplace throughout St Louis brewing history to that point. Clearly, Krausch had perfected his machinery and no longer needed the embrace of the steady temperatures the ground provided. Secondly, and this can be seen from satellite images, the stock house is set back at a greater distance than the brew house, suggesting that long-term plans for the brewery specified a larger gangway in between the buildings. I consider this one of the first, if not the first, thoroughly modern buildings at the Lemp Brewery, both in its restrained exterior ornament and its simple interior.
Courtesy of Dan Arbet
Detail of the Keg Wash House
Finally, the last major building in the panorama (look to the far right) bore an importance demonstrated by its massive size: It was the barrel wash house. Built in two phases and completed in 1897, the wash house accepted empty kegs of beer and then, I suspect, filled them with beer, as there is a tunnel that connects the building with the aforementioned stock house. Alas, the wash house also bears the distinction of being the building most altered by the International Shoe Company when it took over the complex in the 1920s. But thanks to the panorama, we can now see its original window placement.
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Courtesy of Dan Arbet
Detail of the second power plant. Cooling towers of the ice plant can be seen behind the smokestacks.
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Courtesy of Stephen Walker
The ice plant as shown in the Lemp Souvenir Book, circa 1893
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Photo by Jason Gray
The second power plant, today
Finally, the proud building sitting at the top of Potomac Street was the ice plant, which I strongly believe was not designed by Widmann, Walsh and Boisselier, but rather by Krausch. Artificial refrigeration cooled beer at the brewery, but ice was still used in railcars. The cooling towers can be seeing jutting up above the power plant in the photograph. The ice plant, with its giant vaulted entryway on Broadway, almost certainly allowed for the lowering of ice blocks directly into the cars below right before they left the brewery grounds, pulled by the brewery short line railroad, the Western Cable Railway. More about that in a future post.
In the meantime, the 20th century was about to dawn, and William Lemp Sr. was operating one of the most successful breweries in America. His sons, including his favorite, Frederick, were growing up to eventually take over operation of the family business, and buildings sprouted up one by one, year after year. The coming years would bring tragedy, but a surprising resilience, to the Lemp Brewery.
