In Deadwood John Treber Served Liquor and the People

In May 1877 when John Treber drove his team of oxen and a stock of liquor from Leavenworth, Kansas, into Deadwood neither he nor the residents who watched him drive down the dusty main street could know the impact this 24-year-old immigrant from Germany would have on the often-rowdy, frontier Dakota Territory town.

Shown here in maturity, Treber was born in Hochheim-on-the-Main, Germany, in March 1853, the son of Philip and Margaret (Hofmann) Treber.  His father farmed grapes and manufactured wine, early on training his son in the trade.  As he reached his majority, however, perhaps to avoid the Prussian army draft, John left for America with an uncle.  They landed in New York in September 1874.

The young Treber is said to have traveled almost immediately to Leavenworth, Kansas, where he found employment, also reputedly spending some time working at a St. Louis brewery.  Why he chose to relocate to Deadwood is unclear.  In April 1877 he left Leavenworth and traveled by ox team to Fort Pierre and then to Deadwood, a trip of 730 miles.  With his stock of whiskey and cigars and a local partner named Herrmann, Treber rapidly set up shop on the town’s rutted dirt main street.  As shown left in a colorized photo, their store was in a rickety one story frame building, marked by a large sign.

In Leavenworth Treber had met Hermina Pasch, like himself a German immigrant.  She had been born in near Stettin and brought to the United States as an infant.  Landing at New Orleans, the Pasch family had traveled up the Mississippi River to Hermann, Missouri, where they made their home.  The couple married in Leavenworth in June,1878, and quickly returned to Deadwood. Their pairing would produce three children, a girl and two boys.

With a gold rush having visited the Dakota Black Hills, Deadwood was experiencing boom times.  Saloons abounded, slaking the thirst of prospectors and mine employees.  The Herrmann-Treber liquor dealership prospered, by 1884 estimated at doing $100,000 a year business.  The wealth allowed them to tear down their original store in 1885 and in its place construct a two story brick building.  About the same time Herrmann departed leaving Treber as the sole proprietor.

He brought whiskey supplies in barrels to his liquor house and decanted them into ceramic jugs.  Those would then be sold to Deadwood’s many saloons and cafes where their contents would be dispensed drink by drink.  As shown here, several different examples of Treber jugs have survived down the years.  The container shown right with its Albany slip body, Bristol glaze and cobalt underglaze label is particularly attractive and indicates the kind of attention the proprietor paid to the appearance of his containers.

Treber also recognized that as a wholesaler it was necessary to provide advertising giveaway items to select patrons who purchased liquor from him.   He seems to have favored match safes for gifting.  Shown here are two examples.  The first is of metal construction, attractively designed and straightforwardly carrying Treber’s message.  The second is celluloid, a plastic-like compound discovered in the search for a better billiard ball. It proved to be an excellent bearer of ad messages.

Meanwhile Treber also was seeking public office — a family tradition.  In Germany his forebears had served in a variety of public position.  For a quarter century his father, for example, had been the treasurer of Hochheim-on-Main.   About 1890, Treber ran as a Republican for a position on the Deadwood City Council. He was elected and repeatedly re-elected, serving at least 24 years on that body.  In 1910 the people of Deadwood sent him to represent them in the South Dakota legislature.  Shown here is the engraved top of a cane given Treber in thanks for his state service.

Treber’s liquor profits also made it possible for him to invest in other enterprises that helped develop Deadwood.  He was a co-owner of the plush Franklin Hotel, shown left, a co-founder of the First National Bank of Deadwood, and owner of a feed company at nearby Pluma, South Dakota.  Like many townspeople Treber also had mining interests.  Shown below is his stock certificate from the Deadwood-Heidelberg Mining Co., a gold mine located on a mountain not far from town.  He also was a director of the Homestake Mining Co., one of America’s largest gold mining firms for more than a century.  Said a 1915 biography of Treber:  “He is a man of good business discernment and sound judgment….”

As he aged, Treber brought his second son, William L., into management roles for his business interests.  By this time his firm was reported to having “dominated the liquor trade” of the Black Hills.  He was also able to travel, returning to Germany in 1907 to see his family.  His spacious home became a showplace in Deadwood. Things appeared to be going well for John Treber.

Prohibition forces at work in South Dakota, however, were about to upend Treber’s Deadwood liquor business.  In 1917 the state went “dry” and the German immigrant was forced to shut off liquor sales.  Treber seems to have planned for that eventuality.  He turned his liquor house into a firm “jobbing” cigars and non-alcoholic beverages such as “Bevo” and “Columbine.”  Note the soft drink bottle here.  At the same time Treber moved his liquor business about 30 miles across the state line into Beulah, Wyoming, still a “wet” state.  From there thirsty South Dakotans could carry liquor back home.

Treber lived long enough to see the repeal of National Prohibition and South Dakota’s law.  He died in October 1937 at the age of 84.  After a funeral mass at his parish Catholic church, he was buried in Deadwood’s Mount Moriah Cemetery adjacent to his wife, Hermina, who had had died in 1922.

A tribute to John Treber, recognizing his contributions to his American home town, appeared earlier in a biography and bears repeating here.  Of Treber it says:  “His long connection with the city council indicates clearly the confidence and trust reposed in him…and that he has worked for the benefit of the city is a self-evident fact.”

Note:  Much of the material for this post is derived from “History of the Dakota Territory” by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. IV, published in 1915.  The photos of John Treber and his home are from the Treber Family Collection that claims a copyright on them.  I cannot find a website for the Collection to allow me formally to ask for permissions but have applied to a potential alternative source without response to date.  

Addendum:  This is to alert both followers of this blog and others that I have a new website involving whiskey.  It is a compilation of more than thirty vignettes about Old West saloons and saloonkeepers.  Outlaws, gunslingers, and shootings abound.  This new blog can be accessed at wet enterprise: select saloons of the old west@blogspot.com. If this new site proves popular, other compilations under the “wet enterprise” heading may be forthcoming.