To me one of the most fascinating buildings in town is located down on Webber Way. Locally known as the Old Brewery it sits in a dormant state waiting to tell a story about itself. It would be a rather lengthy story because this building has been around for a long time. Construction started in 1899 on this heavy duty structure. Originally it was a five story building but in 1907 another two floors were added on. From the picture above you can tell where the original building stopped and the two new floors began. It is these two top floors that really make the building stand out as the Gothic design it is. It is however the tallest building in town even though it sits at a lower elevation in the city. It cost $75,000 dollars to build the original 5 story building and another $10,000 dollars to add the two top floors on. Named the Crockery City Brewery it produced beer and ale as well as ice that shipped all over the tri state area. Much has been written about the business side of this brewery and the many changes it went through especially during the prohibition. This article is more about showing people the inside of this building and some of the products that were made there. I will provide links to some of the websites that have the complete history of the ownership and production side of this company at the bottom of the page. Since I was little and would ride past this place on my way to Bill Booth football practice I have always wondered what this place was. It does look a little scary and intimidating from the outside.
The building has been generally vacated since the late 60's and sits today as a warehouse for a local contractor. A couple of summers ago I got a chance to take a look inside and freely roam from floor to floor. Photos of this building in it's prime are very hard to come by especially of the inside. Very few photos exist of the brewery and of the people that worked here.
This is a view looking up at the freight elevator shaft that runs to all seven floors. You can see the main cable has gave way over the years letting the car laying in pieces on the bottom.
The front side of the elevator on the second floor.
This is the main drive unit of the elevator and is located in the basement. It is an electric belt drive that winds a the cable onto a drum creating enough leverage to hoist very heavy freight to the different floors. Most of the hops and grain were stored in the upper portions of the building and then pushed through a grate in the floor when needed.
Above is where the wooden vat once stood. It took up two entire floors part of whats left of the vat can be seen below.
There is an open stairway in the middle of the plant but I don't think it has always been opened up this way. It runs from the basement up. Near the top many of the wooden stair treads are missing and most of the handrail is gone. To get to the roof though all of us kept climbing.
The above shots are of random areas of the building. At the rear of the building most of the roof over the ground floor has been torn off leaving the inside exposed. It is kind of bizarre to see. I don't know what the four wheel cart moved? Probably wooden kegs around the plant.
Part of an old beer barrel used to probably wind a hose around. I wonder where the "Hoops" were made?
I liked the cut glass in this switch. Really looks like something hi tech from the 50's.
At the top above the seventh floor there is a little room for the elevator pulley and support.
Center pulley for freight elevator.
The elevator room sits on two steel beams and has a partial wooden floor. It is the highest point on the building.
A zoomed in view of the city from the top of the elevator room.
During the Prohibition the plant was resourceful enough to stay in business by bottling it's own brand of soda. That along with other products carried them through until they were allowed to bottle beer again. When the plant was sold years later a Coca Cola plant was established here in the city that bottled the "little" Cokes. Below is a collection of bottles I have gathered through the years. It is kinda cool how the Coke bottle is stamped with East Liverpool on the bottom. There was an old Coke sign in the basement of the Brewery that used to be on the front of the building.
During the late forties and early fifties the Webbers purchased a farm on route 30 near West Point. Below are two photos of the two different barns that remain today.
Ironically the same Bill Booth coach I had while playing for the West End Wildcats now owns this building today. Mark is a great guy and has a vast knowledge of city history and architecture. Much thanks to him for letting us go through the brewery.
For more information on the history of the Brewery follow these links:
http://www.eastliverpoolhistoricalsociety.org/Webberbrew.htm
http://www.ohiobreweriana.com/library/holdings/crockerycity.shtml
I'm surprised those old barns are still standing. I explored the first one with the Coke sign on it in 1976 and even then it looked like it hadn't been used in a few decades. I could tell it had been a dairy farm because there were cow milking stalls in the basement of the barn.
ReplyDeleteYou have some very interesting stuff posted on these pages...
Thank you. The barn with the old Coke sign is gone. 2 or 3 years ago we had some high winds move through in the early spring. The barn collapsed in on itself. I think the old Webber homestead and barns are across the street and back in off the road. They are not visible from the road.
ReplyDeleteThere was an elderly woman there with the last name of Webber that lived in an old house in the woods closer to the creek. As a kid we use to have a travel trailer that we usually kept at that campground on the creek. The campground was called Vagabond Lodge back then in the 70's. Mrs. Webber's house and land were next to the camp on the east side. If you look on Google Earth you can see the roof of her house and the driveway going in to it. I had forgotten all about it until you mentioned the Webber homestead.
ReplyDeleteIt was during the time we used that campground that I explored those old barns (two of them now that I've thought about it) and the abandoned coal mine that I mentioned elsewhere across the creek from the campground.