By the time Nathan Block entered the Louisville liquor trade in the late 1870s, the Kentucky city was fast becoming the whiskey capital of America. Competition was intense. Finding a marketing niche was challenging. While others were championing low cost booze, Block chose to aim high. Thus he is remembered and honored as a broker, wholesaler and ultimately distiller who promoted and sold the finest in Kentucky bottled-in-bond whiskeys. At the same time, however, Block’s life was plagued by setbacks and family tragedies.
Block was born in Bavaria in August 1844, a state in the Germany where Jews regularly had faced discrimination. Two years before his birth all Jews had been expelled from the province of Upper Bavaria. This persecution may have led his father, Moses, to emigrate with the Block family to the United State when Nathan was ten years old, settling in Louisville. The father built a productive life in America for his children, insuring that they were given good educations. It was said that: “With an unrelenting work ethic, his father, Moses, instilled in [Nathan] the belief that anything was possible if you were willing to work hard enough for it.”
Upon achieving maturity Nathan initially worked in the wholesale dry goods business. He soon tired of that occupation and abandoned lingerie for liquor. In 1875 with his younger brother, Joseph, and a friend, Emile Franck, they established a whiskey brokerage firm, buying from quality Kentucky distillers and selling to liquor dealers in some 29 states coast to coast under the name Block, Franck & Company.
An 1888 publication, “The Industries of Louisville and of New Albany, Ind.” referred to the partners as: “Composed of active, energetic young men, and every member travels from one year end to the other….” As brokers, Block and his partners specialized in selling top shelf bourbon, reputed to be able to supply the best whiskey available in Kentucky: “This house deals only in goods in bond, and all shipments are made directly from bonded warehouse, thus assuring to the trade that the whiskies are perfectly straight, the most desirable feature for retailers buying their goods.” For a time the brokerage operated from an office in the Columbia Building, Louisville second tallest structure, shown here.
Frustrations over obtaining sufficient quality product may have moved Block, Franck to expand into a full-fledged wholesale liquor operation located at 205 West Main Street on Louisville’s famed “Whiskey Row.” There the partners also featured proprietary brands of whiskey, likely blended in their own quarters. Their whiskeys included “Kentucky Oaks,” “Kentucky Derby,” ”Tremont,” and “Gold Dust.” Their flagship brand appears to have been “Old Thoroughbred Rye,” shown below in a flask and back-of-the-bar bottle. Although it is claimed that the partners registered their brand names under the trademark laws, I can find no evidence.
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| The Bernheim Brothers |
As with many liquor wholesalers, the problem of securing sufficient quality whiskey was a continuing problem for Block as the demand for his bourbon grew. Seeking to buy at least a share of his own distillery, he found an opportunity when the Pleasure Ridge Park Distillery came on the market. That distillery had been built by F. G. Paine on the Dixie Highway adjacent to the Newport News & Mississippi Valley Railroad about eleven miles from downtown Louisville. To afford the property Block joined in a partnership with the Bernheim Brothers who already owned a highly successful distillery in the city. [See my post of December 10, 2014.] Bernard Bernheim became president; Block was vice president.
With a capacity of producing 10,000 gallons of liquor per day, the Pleasure Ridge Park Distillery was able to turn out ample quantities of premier Kentucky whiskey, both bourbon and rye. Having an assured supply of superior product from a distillery already known for quality, Block must have been euphoric as he contemplated the future. Shown below is an ad depicting the distillery and listing its prime brands.
In March 1896, however, disaster struck while Block was away on a sales trip to New Orleans. Fire destroyed a warehouse that contained an estimated 30,000 barrels of whiskey. It started as an ember from a smokestack that landed on the roof of one of the warehouses. In less than ten minutes, the flames spread to the barrels aging on the upper floor, causing them to explode. Flaming whiskey flew everywhere. The building collapsed. Surrounding ditches overflowed with liquor as the adjacent landscape was inundated. The nearby distillery structure itself luckily remained intact.
The Bernheims’ losses were moderate and covered by insurance. The bulk of the whiskey destroyed was in the name of Nathan who as a result was hit hard financially. Moreover, the federal government claimed that the partners owed almost a million dollars (some $30 million today) in taxes on the lost liquor. A few distillers had attempted to scam the feds by staging phony fires while their whiskey was stashed elsewhere. The government seemingly was taking no chances.
At great expense Nathan and his partners fought the fine in court for almost a year. The day before Thanksgiving in 1897, the Secretary of the Treasury canceled the bond, forgave the tax, and, in effect, freed Block and the Bernheims of any further liability. In the meantime the Bernheims had built a completely new distillery at Seventh Street and Bernheim Lane in Louisville. They sold their interest in the subsequently restored Pleasure Ridge Park Distillery to Block.
To quote one observer: “While many a lesser spirit might have thrown in the towel, it was not in his nature. From the ashes he lifted himself, soon turning calamity to victory with the acquisition of the newly rebuilt distillery. At long last, Nathan Block had finally become the sole owner of his own distillery; a bourbon king of his own making!” Block celebrated by adding two more brands to his offerings, “Kentucky Cornflower” and “University Club.”
Block also was distinguishing himself by community involvement. He was president of the Standard Club, a Louisville golf course; a past master of the St. George Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, and a member of the the Commercial Club and Louisville Board of Trade. Much of his effort was devoted to his Jewish heritage as president of the Temple Adath Israel congregation in the early 1890s and active in the charity work of the Hebrew Relief Society.
Throughout his early years Block had also found time for a personal life. In 1870, he had married Clara Gotthelf, a local girl. Clara was 21; Nathan was 26. They would go on to have a family of seven children, four daughters and three sons, all born between 1871 and 1889. As his boys, Joseph and Bernard, advanced to maturity, Block brought them into his liquor business, eventually changing the name to Block & Sons Company. Having suffered from asthma and other infirmities for years, in 1903 at age 59 Block retired from the enterprises he had built and left them to the management of his two sons. If Block looked forward to a comfortable and trouble free retirement, however, that was not to be.
In 1907 after 37 years of marriage, Block’s wife Clara died, 56 years old. A year later his eldest son Joseph, 35, the heir apparent to the Block liquor dynasty, was dead by his own hand. For about five months before his suicide Joseph had suffered from depression, said in part brought on by his mother’s death and had been being treated at a mental hospital in Philadelphia. On the day of his suicide Joseph gave no hint of what was to come. He went to the bathroom adjacent to his office, locked the door, took out a .38 revolver, stood in front of a mirror, and fired a bullet into his right temple. In addition to a grieving father, Joseph left behind his widow, Cora, and two young children. His brother Bernard assumed management of the distillery.
Block’s “tragedies” were not destined to end there. Seven years after Joseph’s suicide, his youngest son, Walter, only 26 and unmarried, who had been troubled with ill health from adolescence, in 1915 repeated his brother’s deed. While living at home with his father, Walter fatally shot himself, again standing before a mirror. He was buried in Adath Israel Cemetery next to his brother and mother.
The patriarch himself would die of natural causes at home two years later. Block was 73 years old and joined family members at Adath Israel. The family monument and his gravestone are shown below. Block left an estate worth more than $3,000,000 in today’s dollar. His will gave bequests to his children, grandchildren and several Jewish charities.
Block’s legacy has been summarized by one whiskey guru this way: “…He had indelibly left his mark in the annals of bourbon history. Block's whiskey brands continued to enjoy robust national distribution via his son’s aptly named “Block Bros” whiskey wholesale and brokerage business for nearly 20 years until the onset of Prohibition.”
Note: This post has been made possible by three principal sources. The 1886 publication, The Industries of Louisville, etc., provided details of Block’s early days in business. “Block, Our Story” from an organization reviving the brand online filed in distillery details and is the source of the quote that ends this vignette. The 2021 book, Bluegrass Bourbon Barons, by Byron S. Bush devotes a chapter to Block and is the source of information on his sons’ suicides.
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