The art of brewing has had a long history in Joplin. What was a growing industry was stilled by the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But in Joplin’s early decades, brewmasters were busy and prosperous.
The first brewmaster to establish a brewery in Joplin was Nicholas Zentner. He founded the first brewery in East Joplin in 1871. He left Joplin four years later to go west. Charles Schifferdecker and Edward Zelleken established a bottling company and brewery in 1876 and ran it until 1888. Schifferdecker’s beer garden along Turkey Creek became a popular summer venue.
Zentner returned in 1881 to join George Muennig to build the Middle West Brewery. In 1884, the brewing plant was constructed on the east side of Fifth and Main streets, where the Christman Building is today. It had its own well more than 780 feet deep to supply water for brewing and for ice. The plant continued in operation until Zentner, the remaining partner, sold the business in 1900. A Globe article in 1907 calculated the plant’s production over its 16 years of operation as follows: Its 800,000 kegs of beer translated into “102,400,000 ordinary glasses of beer to the Joplin district.” Joplin was wet.
The new corporation moved to East Seventh Street, just west of the Kansas City Southern tracks. The capacity of the brewery was doubled with completely new machinery. It operated under the name Middle West Brewery until 1907, when the company was reorganized under the name Home Brewing and Ice Co. It produced Middle West beer that sold for 10 cents a bottle.
Redell Manufacturing Co.
A competitor was the Redell Manufacturing Co. Located in an imposing structure on the northeast corner of Sixth Street and Virginia Avenue, it held the lucrative franchise for Anheuser Busch beer. It sold whiskey, carbonated sodas, imported wine and ice as well as beer. Its location next to the Frisco tracks made shipment quick and easy.
Founded in 1881, Redell Manufacturing was a strong believer in advertising. Full-page ads were common, touting the wide variety of beverages offered, though it was limited to wholesale trade.
For example, in 1910, a full-page ad described in detail its seven brands of whiskey. Real Redell, Deep Rock, Hazel Hill, Hazel Patch, Spark Plug, Elco Rye and Social Session each had distinctive traits appreciated by a satisfied clientele. “Real Redell, high-class Bourbon, guaranteed to be straight 8-year-old stock. Made from spring water near Frankfort, Ky., from best grain obtainable. Stored in heated warehouse, double aging the product. A uniform excellence marks all Real Redell whiskey.”
Besides supplying beverages and ice, Redell handled bar equipment, which it leased to any number of saloons in the Joplin area. Court cases about repossessing bar accoutrements from delinquent bars were not uncommon. But it was this practice that landed the company in an antitrust suit brought by a state prosecutor in February 1915.
The Globe reported prosecutor S.W. Bates charged the company solicited property owners to petition to open saloons and that the saloons were actually owned by Redell with the property owners acting as its agents. In effect, it was operating saloons, which would break the company’s charter as a wholesaler. Further, it charged Redell and other companies worked together in a pool to control prices for ice, carbonated water and beer. Two months later, the case was dismissed without comment.
Prohibition kills breweries
Meanwhile, the temperance movement was growing increasingly stronger through the 1910s. The movement for a new city commission form of government was underway at the same time. Public meetings on how a new charter would treat saloons and liquor distributors brought Redell management into the discussion. Liquor providers were concerned language in the new charter would restrict saloon licenses or prohibit liquor sales. Saloon licenses were $2,200 a year. Joplin had 57 saloons in 1914.
Brewers and dealers could see the writing on the wall and began providing alternatives to beer, having all the flavor but no alcohol. Redell had Budweiser described as “becoming more and more the national beverage. We believe it to be the greatest temperance drink in the world. Piquant, healthful, appetizing.”
Another was Bevo: “A cereal beverage, not a ‘near-beer,’ nor do we seek its sale on any basis of being an evasion of the law or of being a substitute for anything. It is offered purely for what it is — a delightful, wholesome and delicious drink.”
Middle West offered its own Simlax: “The new American drink. The drink for every table.” Or Schlitz’s Famo: “Drink and food, a worthwhile, cereal beverage, nonintoxicating, refreshing and satisfying.”
Federal regulators in World War I shut down all breweries as a war conservation measure on Nov. 30, 1918. Home Brewing’s 35 employees were out of work. It said it had enough beer on hand for seven months. With the 18th Amendment enforcing prohibition of alcohol sales and production to take effect on July 1, 1919, closing the nation’s saloons, Joplin faced a loss of $62,500 from annual saloon licenses. At least one saloon owner in 1919 remarked, “Why should I worry about something that’s not going to happen, at least this year? The saloons will not close. Of that I am convinced.”
They closed.
The prospect for breweries was bleak. Home Brewing was sold to its management under the new name of Middle West Products in December 1919. The new company lasted another two years until going into receivership. Redell Manufacturing focused on soft drinks and ice, but it, too, went out of business. It was sold to F.E. James in late 1920. James, who had his own ice business, merged the two, renaming it the James-Redell Ice Co.
While liquor wholesalers returned after Prohibition’s repeal, commercial breweries did not. After 48 years, the breweries that quenched the district’s thirst with millions of glasses of beer had gone dry.
Bill Caldwell is the retired librarian at The Joplin Globe. If you have a question you’d like him to research, send an email to [email protected] or leave a message at 417-627-7261.
