Foreword: The importance of alcohol to American literature has been the subject of numerous books and articles down through the years. This post is devoted to three famous authors who have saloons associated with their names. I am struck by the fact that the three saloonkeepers were all immigrants of German heritage. There may be a hint in the welcoming environments that commonly have characterized German-owned drinking establishments.
While living summers in Elmira, New York, Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens), already a world famous author, frequently found occasion to visit a local saloon run by an immigrant German named August Klapproth, and his son, Charles. Years later the National Distillers Product Co.,, the source of “Old Crow” bourbon, as part of a series of “history re-imagined” magazine ads featured Twain at Klapproth’s. Most were fanciful.
From the little to be gleaned from the historical record, the Klapproths were stolid German publicans content with running a decent tavern. August Klapproth had been born in Darmstadt, Germany, and immigrated to America as a youth. His son Charles, born in America, never married and lived much of his later life with his widowed mother and an unmarried sister. Fame came when Twain chose the Klapproth saloon as his favorite Elmira watering hole.
It was not until the early 1980s that Old Crow’s representations of Twain finally approached reality. The ad shown below recreates the tavern interior as it actually looked, including the wood paneling, the fireplace and the metal bas relief sculpture above it. This ad has Twain telling his rapt audience: “Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightening that does the work.”
When he died in 1910, Twain was buried in Elmira’s Woodlawn Cemetery, the same burial ground where both August and Charles Klapproth are interred. The story does not end there. When the saloon was being torn down, the paneled wall, fireplace and decorative metal casting were saved and now are the centerpiece of the Mark Twain Archive at the Gannett-Tripp Library of Elmira College. Shown below, note the similarity to the ad above.
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American author Jack London as a boy found a second home and a source of inspiration in an Oakland, California, saloon run by a friendly German immigrant named Johnny Heinhold. Memorialized by London in his novels and autobiography, Heinhold’s still stands as a tribute to London, shown here, who never forgot the proprietor nor the drinking establishment where his writer’s imagination first was ignited.
London is said to have found a “second home” in Heinhold’s Oakland, California saloon when he was as young as ten. Shown here, the saloonkeeper was known for his kind heart. He must have seen something special in the boy and made a place for him. Shown below is an extraordinary photo of the young London sitting in Heinhold’s, engrossed in a dictionary . At the same time the boy was listening to the stories of “the hard mixed crowd” that frequented the saloon, including crews of whaling vessels, sealing ships, and windjammers.
In his autobiographical book, “John Barleycorn,” London dwelled on his relationship with the saloonkeeper: “More than once in the brief days of my struggles for an education, I went to Johnny Heinhold to borrow money. When I entered the university I borrowed forty dollars from him, without interest, without security, without buying a drink. And yet…in the days of my prosperity, after the lapse of years, I have gone out of my way by many a long block to spend across Johnny Heinhold’s bar deferred interest on the various loans. Not that Johnny Heinhold asked me to do it, or expected me to do it.”
London's association with the saloon has more than been repaid. Now on the National Register of Historic Places, Johnny Heinhold’s saloon has been altered on the outside. As shown here, the front has been updated to accommodate a large neon sign announcing the saloon as “Jack London’s Rendevous.” The north side of the building is hidden behind a billboard-like appendage decorated with a late 1990’s mural honoring London, commissioned by the Port of Oakland.
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Virtually any anthology of American poetry will have a verse or two from Eugene Field, an author, poet, and editor of newspapers ranging from Denver to Chicago. Known for him dislike of prohibition, when in his home town of St. Louis, Field regularly found his way to a saloon run by a German immigrant named John Henry Bloeser.
In 1876 while Field in St. Louis writing editorials for the St. Louis Journal, he met John Henry Bloeser, a German immigrant who had arrived in the United States in the mid-1860s, living first in Chicago and after his marriage in 1872, moving to St. Louis. There he opened a saloon at Pine and Eighth Streets, shown below. His drinking establishment soon became a regular hangout for the newspaper and literati crowd. Field was among Bloeser’s regulars.
Bloeser sold both wholesale and retail liquor, calling his company the Bloeser Distilling Company. He was not making whiskey but buying it from distillers and blending it in his facilities to achieve a desired color, taste and smoothness. He used the brand names “Empire Rye” and “Harlem Club” for his blends. Although Bloeser failed to trademark either label, he advertised his whiskey widely though shot glasses and corkscrews.
Bloeser must have missed Field’s steady patronage of when he left St. Louis in 1880 to become managing editor of the Kansas City Times. Field landed a similar position with the Denver Tribune and then moved to the Chicago Morning News as a reporter. From his Chicago base, Field with some frequency returned to St. Louis, possibly to visit relatives, despite once having described it as an “ineffably uninteresting city.” According to newspaper reports, when in town he regularly visited Bloeser’s saloon where he presumably found companions who were not entirely “uninteresting.” I fantasize that a Field’s drinking poem may have had this “watering hole” in mind. An excerpt reads:
And you, oh, friends from west and east
And other foreign parts,
Come share the rapture of our feast,
The love of loyal hearts;
And in the wassail that suspends
All matter burdensome,
We’ll drink a health to good old friends,
And good friends yet to come.
Note: Longer posts on each of these authors and their favorite saloons may be found elsewhere on this website: Twain and Klapproth’s, March 10, 2023; London and Heinhold’s, February 10, 2023, and Field and Bloeser’s, May 17, 2023.
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