Whiskey Men Who Became Midwest Millionaires

Foreword:  During the 18th Century, more than a few distillers, whiskey rectifiers and wholesale dealers found that the profits made in making and selling liquor could be used profitably in other productive enterprises.  By canny investing some became “captains of industry” and exceedingly wealthy.  The Midwest, experiencing boom times after the Civil War, presented a particularly favorable economic climate.  Presented here briefly are three stories involving whiskey men in Illinois and Indiana.  

The Herget Brothers, John and George, enhanced the economy of Pekin, Illinois, through their enterprise and investments encompassing a variety of enterprises.  At the center of their local business conglomerate was making and selling whiskey.   A 1910 history of Illinois described the Hergets this way:   “The members of the family stand high in the social circles of the city, and are universally respected for worth and nobility of character.” 

The Hergets immigrated to the United States from Germany as young men, eventually settling in Pekin.  Shown here, John on left, about 1860 they opened a grocery store that specialized in liquor.  

Seeing whiskey as good investment, in the fall of 1888 the brothers built the Star Distillery in Pekin and two years later opened a second facility they called Crescent Distillery. Later selling both, with the proceeds they then erected the Globe Distillery, at the time the largest whiskey-making plant in Pekin, having the capacity to mashing 5,000 bushels of grain daily.

During the late 1890s the brothers shut down their grocery and liquor enterprises actively to pursue other business interests.  John was involved with the Pekin Steam Cooperage Company, Pekin Gas and Electric Light Company., Turner-Hudnut Grain firm, Globe Cattle Company, Farmer’s National Bank, a beet sugar factory, and was a large landowner in Tazewell County.  George was a major investor in the founding of the Illinois Sugar Refining Company; the Globe Cattle Company, and the Pekin Stave and Barrel Manufacturing Company, of which he was president. In 1905, with sons Henry and William, he founded the Herget & Sons Bank, shown right.  Whiskey had fueled their business success.

Born into an immigrant Scottish family, brothers Thomas, James and John Gaff found opportunity in America’s midsection to create a commercial empire of extraordinary size and breadth. The Gaff saga began in 1811 when parents James and Margaret Wilson Gaff pulled up stakes in Edinburgh, Scotland and immigrated to the United States with their three-year-old son, Thomas.  The family settled first in New Jersey where son James was born in 1817 and John in 1820. Far from wealthy, the brothers from early on honed their skills in the mercantile trade.

After an initial move to Pennsylvania where the Gaffs ran a profitable general store and distilling operation, they were enticed to move to Aurora, a small town in along the Ohio River in southeastern Indiana, by an offer of free land and tax incentives.  With James Gaff, shown here, in the lead, upon arrival the Gaffs almost immediately built a distillery near town on the banks of Hogan’s Creek, a waterway that emptied into the Ohio River.  This distillery eventually produced rye, bourbon, and a scotch-type whiskey that the brothers dubbed “Thistle Dew.” The brothers called their facility  “T. and J. W. Gaff & Co.”  By 1850 it had become one of the largest distilleries in the United States.  An illustration of the complex in the 1800s shows its growth and proximity to the Ohio River.

The success of their whiskey-making spurred the brothers to build a brewery in Aurora, stretching for 300 feet along Market Street, an enterprise they called the Crescent Brewing Company.  With their access to the Ohio River multiplying products, it was almost natural that the Gaffs would gravitate to shipping.  They built and owned a fleet of steamboats,  

Founded on revenues from distilling  and brewing,  Gaff Brother investments came to encompass the Fleischmann Yeast Company,  Indiana grain and hog farms, a Louisiana plantation, a silver mine in Nevada, turnpike construction, railroad financing, banking, and a factory that reputedly produced the world’s first ready-made breakfast cereal.  An 1880 history of Indiana's eminent and self-made men captured Thomas Gaff's wide range of interests, both business and philanthropic, noting:  “His executive ability is remarkable. No transaction within the range of his complicated affairs escapes his observation.   

Crawford Fairbanks, shown here as a young man, has been characterized as a poor boy with limited education who studied by candle light.  A Union soldier during the Civil War, Fairbanks returned to Terre Haute, Indiana to start a grain business that soon transitioned to distilling.  After a number of false starts, explosions and fires in his facilities in 1884 he turned to John H. Beggs, a distillery executive from Peoria, for help. Together they organized the Terre Haute Distilling Co., that ultimately would be accounted the world’s largest of the time.  In time Fairbanks became immensely wealthy,  owning the Terre Haute Brewing Company, a strawboard factory, Terre Haute’s principal newspaper, and paper mills in Massachusetts, Chicago and New York.  

Additionally, Fairbanks liked owning hotels, buying the Terre Haute House, shown above;  the Denison Hotel in Indianapolis; and co-owning the French Lick Springs Hotel, a resort popular for its warm springs and reputed healing waters. He also was principal investor in Indiana Sonora Copper & Mining Co., and president of the Terre Haute Water Works and Terre Haute Street Railway Co.  At the time of his death Crawford also was the principal owner of the Standard Wheel Co. and president and major stockholder of Wabash Realty & Loan Co., that held title to most of his real estate, including several farms where he raised race horses.   

May 1924 obituaries of Crawford Fairbanks ran in newspapers throughout Indiana and beyond.  One state journal hailed him as “Indiana’s greatest financial genius.”  Another newspaper declared him “Indiana’s Richest Man.”  What too frequently was ignored was the original driving source of Fairbanks' wealth and enterprises — making and selling whiskey.  

Note:  Longer profiles of each of these men may be found posted on this blog.  Herget Brothers:  June 5, 2018;  Gaff Brothers, July 8, 2018;  and Crawford Fairbanks, June 13, 2018.  There also is a vignette on J. C. Beggs and his family, Oct. 17, 2017.