Ed Kolb: A Liquor Dealer and His Wrestling Life

Shown here is a studio-posed photograph of Edward A. Kolb in a wrestling hold with his eldest son, Harry.  A successful San Francisco liquor dealer,  Kolb as a young man was renowned in California as a champion West Coast wrestler.  As Kolb entered middle age, however, he began to wrestle mentally with the burdens of fame, fortune and family.  That bout he did not win.

Edward Kolb was born in Monroe, Wisconsin, in September 1863, the son of Emma and Abtaham Kolb.  His father, an immigrant from Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, moved to San Francisco about 1869.  There the boy early was introduced to the German Turnverein athletics where he demonstrated superior ability at gymnastics but soon caught wider attention as a highly talented wrestler.

In those days wrestling styles were classified two ways:  Greco-Roman, the Olympic style, dictates that the legs may not be used in any way to obtain a fall, and no holds may be taken below the waist.  Catch-as-catch-can is free style wrestling in which nearly all holds and tactics are permitted in both upright and ground wrestling.  Rules forbid only actions that may injure an opponent, such as strangling, kicking, gouging, and hitting with a closed fist.  Kolb was a master at both styles. He held the Pacific Coast Middle-Weight Amateur Championship from 1885 until 1890.  

Perhaps Kolb’s most notable victory occurred in 1888 was when he met the heavyweight champion of the West Coast, a wrestler named Pritchard.  After tussling for two hours without either man gaining a fall, the match was postponed for a month.  At the rematch, Kolb won in two straight falls.  Another well-publicized win was in April 1990 when he defeated Al Lean, leading to Kolb being crowned overall champion of the West Coast. 

Honored as Referee

That victory was not without controversy.  An investigation into wrestling practices by California officials heard testimony from a wrestler named Gus Ungerman who claimed he knew enough about cheating in amateur wrestling “to fill a book.”  He told investigators that he thought the Kolb-Lean match was a “fake,” implying that Lean threw it.  Whether it was this allegation or for other reasons, Kolb’s active career in wrestling ended soon after, but he continued as a respected referee.

In the meantime Kolb’s life had taken a new turn.  In San Francisco he met 19-year-old Emma Catherine Denhard, the daughter of Wilhelmina and John Denhard.  Shown here, Emma, had been born in New York City and brought to San Francisco by her parents as a child.  Ed and Emma were married there in July 1888.  The couple would have five children over the next 13 years:  Harry, born in 1889; Emma, 1891; Edward Otto, 1893, Alfred, 1894, and Claire, 1903.  All five would have long lives.

The same year as his marriage to Emma, Kolb teamed with her brother, Herman Denhard, to open a liquor store.  Ed had learned the whiskey and wine trade working in the storage cellars of Kohler & Van Bergen [see post on Van Bergen, Nov. 1, 2020].  As shown by the trade card above, Kolb & Denhard featured a wide range of imported and domestic wines, liquors and mineral waters at their 422 Montgomery Street address, shown below.  That is Kolb standing at the left side of the photo, staring into the camera.  

The partners were also “rectifying” their own proprietary brands, that is, blending “raw” whiskeys to achieve a desired taste, color and smoothness.  Their house labels were  "Old Tom Parker,” “Non-Pareil,” and “Old Joe Tracy.”  San Francisco liquor stores vied with each other to produce whiskey bottles with fancy designs in the glass embossing of their bottles.  Kolb & Denhard’s may have been the most elegant.  The bottles bore several different representations of deer. My supposition is that Kolb was behind the images. His passion for deer hunting, mostly occurring in the Mendocino hills of central California, was given considerable newspaper coverage.

By all accounts the Kolb & Denard liquor house was a rousing success.  So much did his business thrive that when Kohler & Van Bergen left their original premises, Kolb, said to be fulfilling a youthful ambition, moved to that location.  Said the San Francisco Call newspaper of of Kolb:  “He…built up a big business by his untiring energy and by his big warmhearted manner.”

Kolb’s home life seems to have been pleasant, surrounded by his young family.  The photo above from the late 1990s shows Ed playing cards with Emma.  From the pile of chips in from of him and the few facing Emma, Ed seems to be winning.  It is a domestic scene of a couple enjoying a comfortable evening at home.  Yet things were beginning to go wrong.

A first indication of trouble may have been in April 1902 when Kolb & Denhard posted a dissolution of partnership by mutual consent when Herman Denhard withdrew from the liquor house partnership.  Kolb took over all assets, assumed liabilities and continued the business at the same 417-419 Montgomery address.  What prompted this move after 14 successful years doing business together?  Denhard apparently did not leave because of better opportunities.  San Francisco directories indicate that afterward he had no employment for several years until 1905. That year Denhard was recorded working as a desk clerk at the California Hotel.  Kolb wasted no time in changing the company name to E. A. Kolb Co. Inc.  An embossed amber whiskey bears that name.

In 1903, according to press accounts, Kolb:  “…suffered a nervous collapse, brought on by too close application to business.  Although he abandoned the active life to which he had been accustomed,the rest did not bring him the wished for relief.”  With his liquor business now being carried out by associates, Kolb sought respite in the quiet of the family’s country house in Palo Alto, 33 miles south of San Francisco.  Nothing, however, seemed to ease his mental torment. 

 

Kolb died in Palo Alto on January 22, 1904.  Although the possibility of suicide was not even hinted, his passing was totally unexpected.  After months of concern about his mental wellbeing family and friends were said to be “inexpressibly shocked at his untimely death.”  Edward Kolb was only 40.  He left behind his widow and five children, the oldest fourteen, the youngest a baby of ten months.  Kolb’s body was returned to San Francisco by train for burial in Colma’s Cypress Lawn Cemetery. The wrestling champion apparently had met an opponent he could not overcome — his own mind.

Notes:  I was drawn to the story of Edward Kolb by seeing examples of his  company’s whiskey bottles from the Ken Schwartz collection in the “Virtual Museum” of the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors (FOHBC).  That led me to other sources, including Kolb’s extensive obituary in the San Francisco Call of Jan. 23, 1904.  Several online sources filled in the whiskey man’s stellar wrestling career.