John Lobmiller and the Whiskey Shakes

John Lobmiller was a glassmaker and inventor from Wellsburg, West Virginia, whose most memorable contribution to mankind may well have been a paperweight that contained shakable bar dice.

In 1885, together with other Wellsburg investors in that Ohio River town, Lobmiller founded the Venture Glass Works shown below.  According to an 1886 newspaper account. the glassworks specialties were brown flint glassware and private mold work. The article praised the operation: “These works are operated with natural gas, and while the establishment is not quite so large as some others, the work turned out is equal to those of more metropolitan pretensions.”

As an inventor, Lobmiller had a number of ideas to improve existing tools and artifacts. In 1901 he filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office an application to make a new kind of paperweight. Most weights of the time were solid glass with an image pasted or sealed in the base. Lobmiller created a paperweight of glass and metal with a cavity. His application noted that “Moveable devices of circular or other form can be confined in the cavity....” Such devices, he noted, would add “novelty and attractiveness” to weights.

Two years later, on August 18, 1903, the U.S, Government issued Lobmiller his patent. There was an immediate interest in the invention from a source that Lobmiller may or may not have had in mind. Although his illustrations show small marbles in the cavity, whiskey dealers and saloonkeepers saw the open space as perfect for holding bar dice.

Shaking for drinks at the bar has been an American tradition almost as old as the Republic. Patrons gamble against the bartender or against each other about who picks up the drink tab. Bar dice games typically are played with a set of five six-sided dice. Each player takes a turn rolling the dice either to outdo opponents or to accrue points.   Bar dice that advertised a particular whisky was “a natural.”

Pre-Prohibition whiskey distributors like Harald Schmidt in Indianapolis (1903-1918) were quick to see the advantages of Lobmiller’s invention. The paperweight with dice would advertise Schmidt’s Fairmont Whiskey, reminding patrons of its availability behind the bar. 

In Memphis, Tennessee, Italian immigrant Dominic Canale had the same idea. He distributed five-dice paperweights to those saloons carrying his “Old Dominick” whiskey. Canale’s company (1885-1915) also featured brands, “B-Wise” and “Dominick Special Rye.”

On Milwaukee’s South Side, George Frank ordered up Lobmiller paperweights for his drinking establishment on National Avenue. His “sample room,” a high flown name for a saloon, is now the site of an apartment building. The base of all three of the weights above bear the Lobmiller patent date. It is unstated but likely that they were fabricated at his Wellsburg glassworks.

In addition to the artifacts featuring a round cavity inside a square glass, a second Lobmiller patent variety was a broader, round paperweight. This is exemplified by the Clingstone Rye weight, shown below, one that also bears the 1909 patent date. This item was distributed by the Shiff, Mayer Co. of Cincinnati, in business from 1906 until 1911. Clingstone Rye was its flagship brand.

Lobmiller’s success almost inevitably drew copycats. Shown below are four whiskey weights, all possibly from the same manufacturer and all bearing a “patent applied for “ designation. No evidence exists of a patent actually being granted, not surprising given how close the concept was to Lobmiller’s weight. Among the whiskey merchants making use of this “knockoff” were the Old Kentucky Fine Whiskey Co. of Kansas City, Missouri (1900-1902) and Winner Rye, the product of Wm. Mulherin & Sons, Philadelphia (1887-1918). 

A third was a weight advertising “Pennsylvania Pure Rye.”  It is unusual because it features only three dice. This weight was distributed by Buffalo, New York, whiskey rectifiers known as C. Person’s Sons Company (1850-1920).   The final “shaker” weight was issued by the Whallen Brothers, John and James, of Louisville, Kentucky (1902-1908).   In addition to their liquor house, one emphasizing mail order, the brothers were major power brokers in Louisville politics while running bawdy stage shows.

Despite the interesting legacy of whiskey memorabilia that John Lobmiller made possible, his own life apparently was plagued with difficulties. He committed suicide in Wellsburg in 1913. An obituary in a glassworkers trade paper cited “business troubles” as the cause.   

Note:  Four of the “whiskey men” cited here have individual posts on this website:   Canale, Nov. 26, 2011;  Persons, Jan. 2, 2012;  Mulherin, Jan. 8, 2013, and Whalen, Jan. 29, 2014.  All four were notable in the liquor trade.

No “Little Town Blues” for Distiller Fred Weaver

Containing a substantial scattering of small towns, Daughin County is located in Pennsylvania coal country.  There Fred Weaver spent much of his working life distilling and selling whiskey, merchandising his liquor in those limited surroundings with a flair that matched “Big City” houses. Devoting an entire page of memorials to Weaver’s career, the local newspaper declared: “He met with marked success in all his undertakings….”

Weaver was born in 1830 in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, the son of Frederick Weaver, a blacksmith who later moved his family to Pottsville where the son, working beside his father, learned the smithy’s trade.  From there the young man gravitated to Daughin County, engaged as a carriage builder in Berrysburg (pop. 426) and eventually opening a general merchandise store there.  Apparently finding that hamlet too small, Weaver moved the business a short distance to Elizabethville (pop. 1,218). At Market and Main Streets he constructed a building that became his headquarters.  Eventually that building became known as the Fred Weaver & Son’s Cash Store.

Main Street,  Elizabethville

Sales of liquor from his Elizabethville store apparently convinced Weaver of the profits to be achieved from not just selling whiskey but producing it.  In 1875 at the age of 45, Weaver opened a distillery there that in time became Weaver & Son Company as earlier partners departed. It was registered as Distillery No. 2. 9th District of Pennsylvania. A label for his whiskey, shown left, provides an accurate picture of the facility.  Note the adjacent railroad siding. Weaver’s liquor from Daughin County could be shipped throughout Pennsylvania and other adjacent states.

To his wholesale customers, Weaver sold his whiskey in a variety of ceramic jugs, each holding a gallon or two of his whiskey.  Shown right is a vessel with a brown glaze and a blue cobalt script label, a rather unique format.  Below are company jugs with a more traditional branding.  Those would have been sold to wholesale customers who would pour them into smaller containers for serving across the bar.

The distillery featured several “house” brands, including “That Weaver Whiskey,” “Silver Spring Whiskey,” and “Copper Double Distilled Rye.”  These were marketed to retail customers from Weaver’s Elizabethville general store in flasks and quart-sized glass bottles as shown here and below.  The labels were professionally designed and executed, in no way inferior in designs originating in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh.

Another "big city" attribute of Weaver's were the shot glasses he gave away to his wholesale and retail customers.  As with his other merchsndise, these were well designed.  He also was willing to spend extra for the white embossing that graced many of them, as shown below.

Profits from whiskey sales fueled other Weaver enterprises.  These included the firm of Weaver & Wallace, an enterprise that controlled a tri-weekly freight line that ran between Daughin County coal towns to Philadelphia.  To service this transport activity, Weaver built the first railroad stations at Lykens (pop. 2,450) and Williamstown (pop. 2,344) and a terminal freight station in Philadelphia.  He also served for many years as a director of the Bank of Millersburg (pop. 1,527) and the Bank of Lykens.  Shown below are the railroad station and Lykens bank.

Weaver also was having a family life, a somewhat confusing one.  His obituary identified two marriages.  His first wife is identified only as “a Miss Conrad of Pottsville” with whom, the newspaper reported, “…He had four children, three of whom survive both their parents.”   The survivors from this marriage were three daughters, all married, two living in Philadelphia and one in Elizabethville.  I have identified this first wife as Caroline Conrad Weaver, buried in a Pottsville, Pennsylvania cemetery but can find no information about her date of birth or death.  Weaver’s second wife was Catherine “Kate” Helfrich of Lehigh County.  They had one son, Henry, who upon reaching maturity would become a partner in managing his father’s enterprises, including the distillery and general store.

Even as Weaver approached his late 60s, he continued to be active in running the distillery, seemingly although aging “full of life and vigor.”  In November 1898, however, after attending a funeral for a family friend Weaver told his wife he was not feeling well.  According to the Elizabethville Echo newspaper:  “…Upon returning home he at once repaired to the radiator, with the remark that his feet were cold…Scarcely a dozen words were exchanged and barely ten minutes had elapsed after entering when he was seen falling from his chair.  He was dead!”   The cause of death apparently was a massive stroke.

Said to be a regular member of the St. Johns Evangelical Lutheran Church in Elizabethville, Weaver was buried from there after services conducted by Pastor Pflueger.  Interment was in Maple Grove Cemetery.  His widow, Catherine, would join him 16 years later.  

The Elizabethville Echo memorial page devoted to Fred Weaver contains this eulogy, summarizing his life and achievements:  “In the death of Mr. Weaver [a] marked personality and excellent character passes from the stage of action. He had been a  citizen of this town for nigh on thirty-five years, and there is not one who would not testify to his generous traits of character, his commendable enterprise as a citizen and his excellent social bearings.”

Note:  Son Henry Weaver continued the operation of the Elizabethville distillery until at least until 1905 when withdrawals of liquor from company warehouses ceased to be recorded by Federal authorities.  As shown above, glass and ceramic containers bearing the Weaver name continue to come to attention reminding subsequent generations of a Pennsylvania distiller who achieved distinction despite never straying from his small town roots.

John Morrin Made Whiskey Where Buffalo Roamed

In Kansas City during the late 1880s, liquor dealer John Morrin faced a dilemma.  Although his proprietary brands of whiskey sold well in Missouri and neighboring states, he was finding it difficult to get whiskey to blend as numerous dealers vied for supplies and the Whiskey Trust fought to dominate markets.  By looking 600 miles east, Morrin found a small distillery in a Kentucky village named for a buffalo wallow — bought it and prospered.

Morrin was born on a farm in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, to Patrick and Honora Graham Morrin, both natives of Ireland.  He received his elementary and secondary education in Pennsylvania, moving to Missouri when he was 18 as his family sought a larger farmstead.  Apparently with some training as a bookkeeper, he moved to Kansas City where in 1881 he appears in city directories keeping the books for W.C. Glass wholesale liquor dealers.

Morrin apparently showed a strong aptitude for the whiskey trade and in 1883 was advanced to traveling salesman for Glass.  By 1887 he was performing the same work for another local liquor firm, Martin, Perry & Company.  Before long Morrin decided to start his own liquor house in Kansas City.  About 1890, with associates E. T. Powers as vice president and George Beamish as secretary,  he opened Morrin, Powers & Company on Delaware Street in Kansas City, the major thoroughfare shown below.   Within four years he changed the firm’s name to Morrin, Powers Mercantile Company.  

From the outset Morrin demonstrated a flair for advertising his whiskey brands. They included "Fairmount Club,” "Grand Canyon,” “Palmetto,” and "Setter Pure Rye.”  He trademarked Grand Canyon in 1905 and Fairmont Club and Palmetto whiskies in 1906. Initially “King Bourbon” was his flagship brand, along with “Setter Pure Rye.”  Shown here is a serving tray made of porcelain that advertises both brands.  It was made in Carlsberg, Austria, by the Victorian pottery factory and was a fairly pricey item to be gifted to the saloons and restaurant carrying Morrin’s whiskey.

Both brands warranted his issuing saloon signs, shown above, featuring a lion  on a King Bourbon print and a Setter Rye wall hanging.  To his customers Morrin also gave away a picture of a nude model lying on a bearskin rug next to a pile of her discarded clothing.  Interestingly, this sign does not advertise any specific whiskey.

In apparent effort to move beyond selling his own proprietary brands, Morrin looked to one of Kentucky’s premier distillers, Col. E. J. Taylor Jr. of Frankfort, Kentucky [See post on Taylor. January 10, 2015].  Two of Taylor’s most popular brands were Carlisle and O.F.C whiskeys.   Morrin advertised both vigorously as: “The most perfectly distilled of any on the market and their purity recommends them as especially desirable for medical use.”  

In another ad shown above, Morrin made an effort to distinguish his liquor house from the many other dealers in Kansas City by a series of claims:  “We import more liquors than all other firms on the Missouri River.” “We own more Straight Whiskies than all other Liquor Firms in Kansas City.”  “We carry more insurance than all other wholesale liquor firms in Kansas City.”  Morrin also claimed a one year increase in business amounting to $100,000, several millions in todays dollar.

Morrin’s boasts did nothing to ameliorate the dilemma, he was facing.  Supplies for his house brands were becoming increasingly expensive and more and more difficult to secure. The Whiskey Trust was buying out distilleries and shutting many down in an effort to increase prices for liquor stocks.  Morrin looked for opportunities to buy his own distillery.  In 1890 he found it in a place in called Stamping Ground, Kentucky, population 331.

Both the location and the distillery bore histories.  The area had gained its name, Stamping Ground to memorialize the American bison (buffalo) that once roamed there.  Before being wiped out by hungry settlers, the animals were attracted to the site by salt licks, availability of spring water, “seeps” for wallowing, and a tasty clover species the locals called “buffalo clover.” 

Originally constructed as a woolen mill, the building had been converted to a distillery by Robert Samuels.  Not a full time distiller, Samuels is said to have made a barrel of whiskey only occasionally and eventually was forced to dispose of the property at a sheriff’s sale in 1873.  A series of owners followed.  

The first was Kinzea Stone, shown here,  an entrepreneur with property holdings in nearby Georgetown,  Kentucky, and four other states.  Although Stone indicated an interest in producing and selling a whiskey commercially, other distractions intervened.  In 1882 he sold the distillery to the Crigler family of Cincinnati [See post on Crigler, January 10, 2012].  They began producing 15 gallons of whiskey a day under the name “Buffalo Springs.”  The company name became Mullins, Crigler & Company.  In time the Criglers departed and the name was changed once again to A. B. Mullins Company.

This was the distillery that John Morrin, in far off Kansas City, saw as an opportunity to break out of the dilemma of finding sufficient liquor to blend, bottle and merchandise.  In about 1890 he bought the plant, continuing to produce whiskey using the recipes from the Criglers.  Applying his talents as a salesman, according to whiskey historian Sam Cecil, Morrin’s distillery “soon made a wide reputation, particularly in the West.”  

Morrin’s two main brands were “Buffalo Springs,” a sour mash bourbon, and “Stamping Ground,” a rye whiskey  Other labels were “Buffalo Bourbon” and Scott County.”  By the mid-1890s, the Kansas City proprietor had increased distillery mashing capacity to 100 bushels a day and had four warehouses with capacity for aging 2,500 barrels.  Morrin issued a whetstone as a customer giveaway that emphasized the buffalo ties.

After almost a decade operating the Stamping Ground distillery, Morrin sold it to a Paris, Kentucky, partnership of Haynes & Trumble, whose company had been major customers for his whiskey  The reason for the sale may well have been the distance of the distillery from Kansas City.  A decade of constant travel between sites and the need for employee supervision from afar may have been wearing on Morrin and his family life.  

Like many young Irishmen, Morrin had married relatively late.  At 32 he wed Caroline, a woman just slightly younger, who apparently had been married earlier and brought two daughters, Juanita and Eulalia, to their union.  Morrin provided them with a large home in a fashionable neighborhood of Kansas City, shown here.  The household included one live-in maid.  

Despite the success of his Kansas City liquor house, Morrin could see his sales being curtailed by Prohibitionist pressures.  Missouri was safely “wet,” but one after another Western states were going “bone dry.”  Several years after selling the Buffalo Springs distillery, Morrin closed down his liquor business and retired to invest in other local enterprises.  Those included the Traders’ Bank of Kansas City and the city’s Racing and Fair Association.

Morrin lived long enough to see National Prohibition repealed, dying in 1934 at the age of 75.  He was buried in the Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery in nearby Holden, Missouri.  His memorial and gravestone are shown below.

 

After Repeal new ownership bought the the distillery and after a fire rebuilt it.  Shown below, as refurbished, the Stamping Grounds facility once again was turning out good whiskey.  In 1941 the property was purchased by Schenley who operated the plant for almost 20 years but shut it down in 1960.  Today all that remains of the distillery John Morrin put on the “whiskey map” is the old stone headquarters building. 

Note:  This post was created from a variety of sources.  Two primary references were “Bourbon in Kentucky, A History of Distilleries in Kentucky,” by Chester Zoeller, Butler Books, Louisville 2010, and “The Evolution of the Bourbon Whiskey Industry in Kentucky,” by Sam K. Cecil, Turner Publishing, Paducah KY, 2000.  Unfortunately I have been unable to find a picture of John Morrin to enchance this story but hope some alert reader may be able eventually to supply one.