George Goodman: Scattered Energies, No Lessened Force

George H. Goodman, a whiskey man from Paducah, Kentucky, was described by a contemporary this way:  “He possess the power of scattering his energies without lessening their force.”   True words.  Goodman was amazing in his ability to keep his liquor business operating smoothly and profitably in no fewer than six widely scattered cities.

Goodman apparently came from high energy American stock.  His grandfather was one of the earliest settlers in the Paducah area, a merchant who loaded a boat with merchandise and sold it at points between Pittsburgh and New Orleans.  After disposing of his stock he would sell the boat and return home to Kentucky on horseback. Goodman’s grandmother had an even more thrilling tale to tell.  Her parents, early settlers in Tennessee, were massacred by Indians.  She escaped, hid in a brush pile and witnessed the slayings.  Both of George’s grandparents lived to be more than 100 years,  driving their own horse to a family reunion after they had passed the century mark. 

George’s father, John Goodman, has been described as a “well-to-do planter” widely known in that part of Kentucky.  His mother was Mary Jane Glasscock.  She was a member of the Haycraft family, said to be prominent in the state’s social and political history.   George was born in March 1876 in the town of Big Clifty, Kentucky.  He attended public school in Paducah,  dropping out at age 12 to become a wage earner.   He clerked in shoe and drug stores, eventually became a traveling salesman, most likely in the liquor trade.

In 1900 at the age of 24, Goodman borrowed $500 from his father to start a retail liquor business in Paducah.  His first location was at 106-108 North Second Av. and, needing more space, in 1907 moved to 115-117 South Second.   As his enterprise became increasingly profitable, he branched out into mail order sales and began to open branch stores in a succession of cities.   They included Jackson, Tennessee; Evansville, Indiana;  Cairo, Illinois;  and Shreveport and New Orleans, Louisiana.  George called these “Branch Houses.”   At one point he also claimed to own the Early Times Distillery in Nelson County, Kentucky, but records fail to sustain the claim.  More likely he was buying all or most of the liquor produced at that facility to create his own brands of whiskey.

“Red Rock” was the firm’s flagship label and appears on many of its ads and promotional materials.   In addition, The company used multiple brand names, including "Clear Creek," "Fawndale,” "Moss Rose Rye,” "Old Bagby,” "Old Charlesworth.” "Old J. L. F.,”, "Old Mc Haney,” "Old Oakford,” "Shady Springs," “Smokey Mountain Corn” and "Standing Rock." He registered the Red Rock name with the Patent & Trademark Office in 1905 but does not seem to have bothered for the other labels.

Goodman’s multiple outlets were often recorded on the ceramic jugs he used to hold his whiskey.  They display a variety of labels, in black and cobalt blue, that likely reflect the places from which they were shipped.  He also bottled his product in glass, once again with his far-flung houses mentioned.  The bottle shown below lists Cairo, Paducah, Evansville and New Orleans.  He also provided giveaways to favored customers, including mini jugs and shot glasses.

In his merchandising literature,  Goodman boasted that the combined business of his houses enabled him to place contracts with distilleries that insured the very lowest market prices. His many outlets, the folder claimed, allowed transport from one to three days earlier than his competition. A Goodman pamphlet, entitled “Our Success”  also asserted that in 1910 his firm realized a total of $800,000 in trade.  If true, the $500 from Goodman’s father been had been multiplied 1,600 times in less than a decade.

In 1910, now well established as a whiskey man at age 34,  Goodman became engaged to and married Margery L. Cumbaugh in Dyersville, Tennessee.  She was 10 years his junior and a graduate of Ward College in Nashville.  Her father was a Paducah businessman and Methodist minister.  George and Margery would become the parents of three daughters, one of whom died in infancy.

During World War One,  while continuing to run his far-flung liquor interests, Goodman was chairman of the McCracken County Council of Defense and the head of the committee in charge of the sale of Liberty Bonds in the Paducah region.  With the end of the war and the advent of National Prohibition in 1920,  Goodman shut down his whiskey business and moved vigorously in other directions.  He bought a Paducah newspaper,  the News-Democrat, in 1922 and took a close interest in its operations.  As one contemporary source reported”  “He has made his paper an effective exponent of local interests.” About the same time he became president of the Smith & Scott Tobacco Company of Paducah and developed a farm of three hundred acres, on which he built a modern dairy and engaged in raising hogs.  He also maintained large and profitable real estate interests in Paducah.

As his reputation as a businessman grew,  Goodman was tapped for other prestige jobs.  This school dropout  at 12 years became president of the Paducah Board of Trade and  was prominent in Democratic Party circles.  He also became one of Western Kentucky’s most prominent horse racing proponents; a record breaking trotting horse was bred and developed on his farm.   George’s prominence was such that President Roosevelt named him as Kentucky State Administrator of the WPA, the Depression-era works organization.  He served in that position for at least the next four years.  He is shown here, second from left, front row, with a number of Democratic politicians.

George Goodman died in Paducah in 1961 at the age of 85,  something of a tribute to the energy and longevity of his ancestors.  In his obituaries Goodman was hailed for his success as a journalist, tobacco dealer, realtor, agriculturalist and breeder of racing stock -- and, of course, liquor dealer.  A contemporary account said:  “From an early age he depended on his own efforts for a livelihood and what he accomplished represents the full utilization of his innate powers and talents.”  Again, true words.  In just two decades and a $500 start  Goodman had created a whiskey distribution network second to none in the United States.

August Graf Launched a Whiskey Triple Threat

While many distillers, rectifiers and wholesalers of whiskey produced multiple brands, most of them had a flagship label that was the strong focus of their merchandising and advertising efforts.  Occasionally a liquor company would feature two brands.  August Graf of St. Louis, Missouri,  was virtually unique in strongly featuring three brands and giving almost equal attention to each.   His “Glen Forest Whiskey,” “Old Governor Sour Mash,” and “Old Capitol Rye” posed a “triple threat” to his competitors.

Graf was born in St. Louis in 1848, one of several children whose parents had emigrated to Missouri from Baden, Germany.  How he begin in the liquor business is unclear.  According to a 1901 history of St. Louis,  in 1867 he opened a liquor store at 1325-1329 South Seventh Street, between Rutgers Street and Park Avenue,.  He was only 19 years old.

For the next 34 years at the same location,  Graf built a business that boasted a large local trade and extensive sales over all of Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma , Illinois, Iowa, and Indiana.  He did it while actively selling three main brands, as shown advertised on an 1897 A. Graf & Co. envelope.  Graf issued ornately etched shot glasses for each brand, as shown here. Altogether there were more than a dozen variations, amounting to an expense that Graf obviously thought worthwhile.  He also packaged his three brands in ornate ceramic containers and giveaway mini jugs and advertised them with a humor well beyond the usual whiskey flackery. 

With his business expanding rapidly,  Graf purchased buildings adjacent to his on Seventh Street, occupying them for office, salesroom and warehouse purposes.  The company apparently also had a stake in the Mayfield Distillery in LaRue County, Kentucky.  Federal records for 1892 show A. Graf & Co. being supplied with whiskey from that distillery. Later a claim was made that Graf was an officer of the Glencoe Distillery, a facility dating from 1872 in Jefferson County, Kentucky.  There is no corroborating evidence of such involvement apart from it being a possible source of supply.

August also found time for a personal life.  In 1872, he married Sophia Rauer, a woman of German heritage four years his junior.   They would have six children, five sons and a daughter.   Both Adolph A., the firstborn in 1873,  and Louis J., third in line in 1877, would grow up to work with their father in the liquor business.  Richard, born 1876, left home for San Francisco, and August V., born 1882, became a nationally-known chemist of water, a handy occupation for someone with a family in the beverage trade.

Graf’s energies led him into an number of different avenues.  In 1883, in partnership a woman named Catherine Schlieper, he established a soft drink company that existed for 24 years and issued a number of popular St. Louis beverages.  He also was a director of the Lafayette Bank and a member of the executive committee of the Broadway Building and Loan Assn.
As his reputation grew,  Graf was tapped for positions of leadership in the liquor industry.  He served as president of the St. Louis Wholesale Liquor Dealers group and was a member of the executive committee of the National Wholesale Liquor Dealers Association of America.

About 1900 the firm incorporated for $100,000, eventually changing the name to the A. Graf Distilling Company.  At the time,  many rectifiers and wholesalers were adding “distilling” to their names without actually owning a distillery, believing it to be a good marketing tool.   The firm registered Glen Forest and Old Capitol with the government in 1905 and Old Governor in 1906.

In January 1905, A. Graf &  Company ran afoul of the federal government in the form of an officer of the Internal Revenue who seized three barrels that indicated they held distilled spirits.  The agent discovered that burnt sugar aka caramel had been added to the liquor and claimed violation of the law.  The company fought the case vigorously, contending that they had paid the original tax on the contents and what happened to the barrels later was outside the jurisdiction of the revenue agents.   When the Circuit Court agreed with the Grafs, Federal officials took the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court where it was argued in 1907.  The decision, in January 1908, upheld the Grafs.

By this time, however, August was not around to enjoy the victory. He died in November 1905 and is buried, along with his wife and several of his children in St. Peter and Paul Catholic Cemetery in St. Louis.  His inscription is at the bottom left of the Graf monument.

His sons, well groomed for the job by their father, took over management of the business, Louis as president, Adolph as secretary-treasurer.   In 1911, they moved to new quarters at 1236-1244 South Seventh Street.

Despite their demonstrated business acumen the Grafs could not avoid further problems with the Federal Government.   In 1912 Department of Agriculture chemists did an analysis of a shipment of “port wine” into Missouri.   They found it misbranded. “Port wine”  was exclusively a designation on products from Portugal and the liquid seized had been made in America.   From the list of chemicals it contained, the vintage possibly was concocted in the basement of A. Graf. This time the firm did not fight the charges.  In 1913 the Grafs pleaded guilty and paid the $5 fine involved.  Truly a “slap on the wrist.”

A much harder slap was only a few years in coming.  As state after state in which A. Graf Distilling did business went “dry,” the business dwindled until, in 1918, the company with the triple threat whiskey combination was forced to close.   August Graf had proved that three flagship whiskey brands could be better than one or two, but in the end, it really did not matter.

Paxtons, Diehls and the Edgewood Whiskey Man

“Daddy, who is that fat man standing on top of the saloon?”  That question probably was asked frequently in the early 1900s and Daddy likely knew the answer: “He’s the Edgewood Whiskey Man.”   Two closely related Cincinnati families also knew the answer.  The Paxtons and the Diehls had created the Edgewood Man and the liquor that the figure represented.

Thomas Paxton was born in the Ohio in 1844, the son of Samuel and Hannah Paxton, whose ancestors had emigrated from Northern Ireland in the 1700s. He would be joined in the family by a sister, Adelaide,  born in 1849, and a brother, John born 1851.  In 1874, age 23, Adelaide married A. G. Diehl, an enterprising young merchant.

In 1874 Cincinnati city directories A.G. Diehl & Co. Wines and Liquors first is listed, located at 32 East Second Street.  A separate listing for the same address lists Paxton & Diehl, Distillers.   A year later the company name became Diehl & Paxton Brothers. The brothers were Thomas and John. Two years later, the business listing was changed again to Paxton Bros. & Co., designating them as “wholesale dealers in wines, brandies, and whiskies.”  The directory noted that the house had been established by A.G. Diehl.

Paxton Bros. occupied a large brick building, four stories in height and 20 by 100 feet.  According to a contemporary report,  the company “enjoyed a large and permanent trade throughout all this section of the country.”  It stated 10 persons were employed at the company to supply its public and wholesale customers.

The Paxtons’ business was highly successful and mentioned prominently in an 1886 book of leading companies in Cincinnati.  At this time, Thomas Paxton, shown right on a whiskey label, was president,  and Samuel Paxton, his father,  was an officer.  John Paxton had died in 1881, only 30 years old.  Moreover, A.G. Diehl was no longer in the picture.

During the late 1870s or early 1880s the company made Edgewood Whiskey its flagship brand of blended whiskey of both sour mash and rye.   As an advertising gimmick the Paxtons selected the figure of a man wearing a Shriner’s fez and a tuxedo.  His most prominent features were a wide spreading belly and the words written across his chest:  “I drink Edgewood Whiskey everywhere."

He quickly became widely known as the Edgewood Man and his bulging figure became a familiar one both on top of and inside saloons across much of the United States.  He was presented to the public in painted plaster  and ceramic  statues, as well as figural decanters and on back of the bar bottles.  The Fat Man even appeared on a corkscrew,  lying prone. 

Edgewood Whiskey was sold to the public in several types of glass and ceramic containers.   Among them was a fancy jug created by Fulper Pottery of Farmington, New Jersey, shown here.  Other company labels included “Bellbrook, “Bullied,” “Coney Island Club,” “Cuvier Club,”  “Island Queen Rye,”  “Paxton’s Private Stock,” “Pearl XXX Rye,” “Purewater Rye,”  and “Queen City Club.”

Throughout its existence Paxton Bros. was principally identified with the Fat Man and in 1887 it changed its name  to the Edgewood Distilling Co.  The Edgewood Man’s celebrity was such that at the 1906 National Homeopathic Convention, an audience presentation described a subject male:  “He stares before a convex mirror and sees himself broadened into the proportions of an Edgewood Whiskey advertisement.” Describing San Antonio, Texas, in the early 1900s, an author stated: " There were big signs all over town of the Edgewood Whiskey fat man....”

After A.G. Diehl’s son, George, joined the firm, ultimately to become its chief executive officer,  a publication devoted to Cincinnati business leaders included a caricature  that portrayed Diehl as the Edgewood Man.  Diehl succeeded Thomas Paxton in running the company, when his uncle, a diabetic,  died in 1904 of  “pyemia,”  This was a disease said to be caused by a massive bacterial infection. Paxton was buried in Loveland Cemetery in Clemont County, Ohio.  He lies in the same plot with his mother and his father.

The nephew guided the company successfully for the remaining 12 years of its life.   When Ohio voted complete prohibition of alcoholic beverages in 1916,  Edgewood Distilling and Paxton Bros. Co. went out of business forever.  The Edgewood Man, as a result, faded from the scene.   Left behind were a great many artifacts to remind us of the fat gentleman with the fez.

S.J. Greenbaum Put Bell(e)s on His Whiskey

S. J. Greenbaum, a Kentucky distiller and wholesaler, produced two brands that rang out strongly to the public:  “Belle of Anderson” and “Bell of Lexington.”  Both found national audiences and are significant elements of the whiskey history of the Bluegrass State.

According to U.S. Census figures,  Greenbaum was born in Germany in 1821.  Although in his business life he always was “S.J. , his given name has been recorded variously as Samuel or Simon.  Facts about his early life are scanty.  We do not know when he arrived in the U.S. or he settled in Kentucky. We know he married later in life, circa 1857, to a woman named Jeanette (called Jennie) who was 17 years his junior. They had two children, Eva,  born in 1858, and  Morris, born a year later.

The 1880 census found him in Louisville, age 59, listing his occupation as salesman for a liquor house.   Author Sam Cecil says that Greenbaum early owned a distillery in Midway, Kentucky,  a Woodford County railroad town on a single track between the cities of Lexington and Frankfort.  The town, shown here in a drawing, had a population of only few hundred. Greenbaum reportedly sold his Midway facilities in 1877 to a grain storage company.  It later burned.  He also is said to have run a distillery in Jessimine County, Kentucky, in the 1880s.  By 1883, according to Cecil,  Greenbaum was back in Midway with a new distillery and producing Belle of Anderson and Bell of Lexington whiskey.  His company quickly became the largest employer in Midway.

Greenbaum’s flagship brand was Belle of Anderson.  He advertised the rye whiskey vigorously, each bottle displaying the distinctive red Star of David on the label. It is shown above on a reverse glass sign provided to saloons.  He merchandised his whiskey in clear glass as well as in small ceramic “scratch” jugs  and milk glass containers.  The latter were likely meant as back of the bar bottles.  Note the embossed Star of David on the front.  Greenbaum trademarked the label in 1882.

Among other giveaway items advertising Belle of Anderson label were several different shot glasses, including one sporting the distinctive red star. Greenbaum also distributed an 1891 New Years greeting, featuring color pictures of two Southern belles in unusual costumes.  A winsome lass with a high peaked hat appears to be holding a riding crop;  the other charmer carries a muff and a cane.  Opened up, the folder holds a calendar and an ad for Belle of Anderson.

In addition to featuring his rye whiskey, Greenbaum also gave major attention to sour mash whiskey, a liquor that was becoming increasingly popular with the drinking public.  He called this brand, Bell of Lexington.  It sold in both quart and flask size, the latter shown here.  Its label notes a Chicago outlet for the firm that was shortlived, showing up in Windy City directories for only one year, 1894.  This whiskey was shipped in strong mitered crates via the railway running through Midway. In one instance Greenbaum sued the railroad company, apparently unsuccessfully, for charging considerably more to ship from Midway than from Lexington or Frankfort.

Greenbaum’s letterheads of the period list him as the president of his corporation and D.J. Lincoln, a Louisville local of Irish descent, as the secretary-treasurer.  Their Louisville offices, about 60 miles from Midway, were located initially on 135 Third Street and from 1887 until 1915 at several addresses on West Main Street.  Over the years Greenbaum featured a number of additional liquor brands,   including "Arlington,” "Glenarme,” "Green Mountain,” "Jessamine,” "Old Bald Mountain Corn,” "Penna. Club Rye,” and "Reading Rye.”  He also issued a "Belle of Bourbon" label on the milk glass Belle of Anderson bottle.

 S.J. Greenbaum died in 1897 and his son Morris took over the operation.  In the 1880 census Morris was 21 years old, living at home, and gave his occupation as “stenographer.”  His father unquestionably had taken him into the whiskey business shortly after and at the age of 38 the son was ready to take on the management of the firm.   In August 1908 a disasterous fire destroyed the warehouses of the Greenbaum Distilling Company in Midway.  About 47,500 barrels of whiskey were burned in one of the largest confligrations ever seen in Central Kentucky.  The loss, which was insured, was about $1 million to the firm and a tax loss to the U.S. Government estimated at $2 million.

Morris became involved with one of the Kentucky “Whiskey Trusts,” called the Kentucky Distilling and Warehouse Co.  From the Trust he acquired all the inventory of the Lexington-based Ashland Distillery, estimated at 18,000 barrels.  Buying a small plot of land adjacent to the distillery warehouse,  he constructed a plant that bottled 40 barrels of whiskey per day and was kept running for a number of years.  The Greenbaum firm reorganized in 1912, changing the name to the Belle of Anderson Distillery.  Morris was listed as president and D.J. Lincoln continued as secretary-treasurer.  In 1915, however, the firm went into bankruptcy and the firm’s whiskey interests in Midway were purchased by outside investors. In 1920 National Prohibition brought an abrupt end to the distillery.  One of the Midway whiskey warehouses S. J. Greenbaum built still survives and is on the National Register of Historical Places.

Note:  There are several differing histories for S. J. Greenbaum regarding other distilleries and companies in which he and later his son might have had an interest.  I have tried to avoid confusing details and concentrate on those facts that seem reasonably well established.  As other information is received, this post will be amended to reflect it. 

“Devil Dan,” The Cowboy Whiskey Man

In 1886 a 26 year old Missouri-born ranch hand rode his horse up to a South Dakota stage coach station that held a saloon. The next day he owned the place and thereupon was launched the career of Daniel P. Roberts, also known as “Devil Dan.”

The stage stop, similar to the one shown here, was called the DeMores Station. It was named for the Marquis de Mores, a French nobleman who had established a stage line between Medora, North Dakota, and Deadwood, South Dakota.  Dan Roberts was employed by the VVV Ranch on the Belle Fourche River and was heading for Deadwood for the Christmas holidays when he dropped into the saloon to warm up from the frigid Dakota weather.

A holiday dance was in progress and the saloon owner, who had been nipping at his own booze all day, was heading to bed to sleep it off. He asked Devil Dan, who did not drink, to look after the business. The well-likkered cowboy crowd got rowdy and began to break up the furniture and knock out windows. Dan let them have their way but as the men sobered up he made them pay for the damages. The next morning the owner sold the place to Roberts for $125 and departed.

Roberts repaired the damage and appears to have taken to the role as saloonkeeper. After running the DeMores establishment for a few months, he apparently sold it and leased the Cliff House, a larger stage coach station and saloon, in nearby Deadwood. A year or so later, for unknown reasons, Roberts relocated to Montana and the lively cow town of Livingston in Park County. Along the way he married Sarah Jane Grimmett. At least two of their four children were born in Livingston, including their only son, David Henry Roberts, known as Henry.

Meanwhile back in South Dakota, the area around the DeMores Station was booming. A frontier marshal and prosperous rancher named Seth Bullock donated land across his land and convinced the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad to build its tracks there. In 1890 a depot was constructed next to the stage stop and the new town of Belle Fourche was launched. Four years later as the result of some chicanery by Bullock, the place was chosen as the seat of Butte County. By 1895, Belle Fourche was shipping 2,500 carloads of cattle per month in the peak season, making it the world's largest livestock shipping point. The town, shown here in the early 1900s, grew quickly.

Roberts, no doubt aware of the activity taking place in his former patch of South Dakota, returned to Belle Fourche with his wife and children. In 1905 he opened a new drinking establishment on the main street of town that he called The Stand-Up Bar. In addition to providing whiskey by the drink, he also sold it wholesale in large jugs. Robert’s saloon was a major cut above the stage stops. As the centerpiece of the house he bought an ornate Chicago-made Brunswick bar and saloon outfit, similar to the one shown here, purchasing it from the owner of the Derby Saloon in Deadwood. It featured an elegant cherry wood back bar and matching front counter.

No sooner had Roberts opened the Stand Up Bar, however, than he was embarked on the trip of his life. Seth Bullock, a Rough Rider during the Spanish-American War, had become a friend of Theodore Roosevelt. When Roosevelt was inaugurated as President in 1905 Bullock conceived the idea of having a cowboy section in the inaugural parade. He recruited 62 cowboys from around the West for the ride. Among them were five from Belle Fourche, including Dan Roberts and his son Henry, the youngest rider in the group.

Shipping their horses by rail ahead of them, the cowboys, including future movie star Tom Mix, followed in their own railroad coaches, having a raucous time. In Washington, as shown here, Roberts and the others were reunited with their ponies and rode around streets of the Nation’s Capitol to exercise their mounts. For the parade, security agents allowed the riders to carry pistols in their holsters as part as their costume, but the guns were unloaded. Riding eight abreast in the parade, they were cheered lustily by the waiting crowds. As they passed the reviewing stand President Roosevelt is said to have jumped up, clapped his hands and shouted: "That's bully! That's excellent, Captain Bullock!"

Returning to Belle Fourche, Roberts took up the role of saloonkeeper in earnest. Like other Western cow towns, Belle Fourche was a wild, wide open place. The main street was known as Saloon Street because of all the “watering holes” located there. Brothels and gambling dens were also a mainstay. As one early resident put it: “The ranchers would come in town to ship and if we didn’t have any entertainment, they would take all that money to Deadwood. The cowboys wanted to gamble, to drink and dance, and they wanted girls. The merchants of Belle Fourche saw that the cowboys had what they wanted.”

Dan Roberts was among them. Apparently he cut quite a figure in Belle Fourche. Although called “Kid” during his days as a VVV ranch hand, he drew the nickname, “Devil Dan,” for reasons unknown. He apparently was widely known as such and that nickname is part of his web memorial. From the whiskey jugs he left behind, Roberts appears to have bought quality ceramics from the Red Wing Potteries of Minnesota. The combination pocket mirror and bar token issued in his name shows similar good taste.

“Devil Dan” ran his Stand Up Bar until South Dakota went "dry" in 1917. He apparently was in Belle Fourche in 1926 when the town celebrated the first reunion and 21st anniversary of the inaugural ride. Tom Mix, now a famous motion picture star, said he would come but later sent regrets. Roberts lived to see Repeal and the beginning of World War II. He died in 1942 at the age of 82 and is buried in the Roberts family plot at Pine Slope Cemetery, located on West Highway 34 near Belle Fourche.

After Repeal, the Stand Up Saloon was reopened as a Belle Fourche tourist attraction, operated by the town itself. In 1960s the building burned and only Robert’s ornate Brunswick bar was saved. The saloon was rebuilt, sold to private interests in 1967, and has had several subsequent changes of ownership. The name has been changed to Cowboy Back Bar, but the ornate Brunswick bar remains.

The Western saloon has been a staple of motion pictures. Few are Hollywood’s silver screen cowpokes who have not prowled their haunts. Dan Roberts knew the Western saloon better than any of them. He started in the liquor business from a rough cabin in the bleak South Dakota wilderness, moved to a more commodious barroom in Deadwood, and finally operated an elite drinking establishment in rowdy Belle Fourche. “Devil Dan” truly was a cowboy whiskey man.

With a Name Like Guckenheimer the Whiskey Had to Be Good

Where Asher Guckenheimer learned about making good whiskey is not clear, but he and his extended family made the Guckenheimer brand tops in America, winning 99 out of a possible 100 points for quality at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and a gold medal. 

 The Guckenheimer name was on every bottle.

He was born Asher Guggenheimer in 1825, in the town of Adingen, Wuttemberg, Germany. The date of his emigration to the United States and arrival in Pittsburgh is unclear but once here he and future generations changed their name to Guckenheimer. After his father’s death his mother married again, a man named Wertheimer.

After receiving some early experience in the U.S. whiskey trade, in 1857 Asher with his half-brother, Samuel Wertheimer, established his own company, calling it, A. Guckenheimer & Bro. They obtained their liquor from Thomas Bell, who in 1845 had founded a distillery at Freeport, Pennsylvania, and whose product was highly regarded. Guckenheimer absorbed the entire output and after Bell’s death in 1865, with Wertheimer, he bought the distillery, enlarged it, and improved even on Bell’s quality. The distillery produced 2,000 barrels a year.

Asher also enjoyed family life. About 1857 he married Caroline "Ida" Weiss, apparently in Pittsburgh. Their first child, a girl Emma, was born in 1858. She was the first of nine children, the last two of whom were born 20 years later in 1878. At least two Guckenheimer children died before maturity.

In 1866, as the demand for Guckenheimer Rye was outpacing the supply, Asher constructed a new and much larger facility at Freeport, shown here in an illustration. According to a contemporary history, the facilities included a three-story brick distillery building, a grain house able to hold 30,000 bushels, a 150-ton capacity ice house, a three story brick malt house capable of malting 100 bushels per day, a 50-barrel per day cooper shop and a three-story bonded warehouse with the capacity to hold 8,000 barrels. Some 25 workers were employed at the facility which usually operated at less than full capacity, customarily producing twenty-two 42-gallon barrels a day.

As the Freeport facility was gearing up, Guckenheimer purchased a second distillery in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, to make a brand of whiskey called “Wyandotte,.” The distance from Pittsburgh prevented the brothers from giving it the attention it needed, so they soon sold it. They then turned to opportunities closer by and in 1876 bought a distillery that had been established earlier in Buffalo Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania. Shown above in an engineer drawing, it operated under the name of the Pennsylvania Distilling Company and made the firm’s “Montrose” brand. The Guckenheimer offices were located on First Avenue in Pittsburgh.

Asher sold his whiskey in bottles ranging from quart to flask size. Shown above are three of the latter, demonstrating the variety of well-designed labels the company employed. Guckenheimer even reached out to the Fulper Company of Flemington New Jersey for one of their “fancy jugs” with his name in gothic gold letters across the front. The company also made and merchandised other brands including “Fairy Breath,” “Freeport,” “Golden Cupid Rye,” and “Pennbrook.”

Guckenheimer’s Rye became one of America’s most famous whiskeys and in 1893 won top honors at the World’s Colombian Exposition in Chicago, scoring 99 points out of 100 in the whiskey judging. As shown here, the firm took full advantage of the honor in its subsequent advertising and in reverse glass signs provided to customer saloons.

That same year, 1893, Asher Guckenheimer died, age 67, much mourned in the community. Always a family affair, company management fell to his son, Isaac, and his two half-nephews, Emanuel and Isaac Wertheimer. In July 1899 the Buffalo Township distillery burned to the ground but was rebuilt and by1900 was back in operation producing 50 barrels of whiskey daily.  In 1905 the company consisted of Isaac Guckenheimer, the Wertheimers, Samuel’s son, Morris, and Isaac’s son, Leon -- a third generation. The Freeport Distillery was producing 20,000 barrels of rye a year and the Buffalo Twp. facility about 12,000 barrels of Montrose whiskey annually. The company continued to be successful until shut down by Prohibition in 1919. In deference to Asher Guckenheimer, the business continued to be run under his name until the very end.

In the post-Prohibition era, the Guckenheimer brand name was sold several times, eventually becoming a commercial-grade bourbon. Asher, whose product emphasis had been high quality, probably would not have been happy. But he continues to be a presence with a huge stain-glass window dedicated to his memory in a major Pittsburgh synagogue. Shown here in a detail, the Guckenheimer window depicts Moses in prayer.

Note: Much of the material for this article is derived from the pre-pro.com website where the originator, Robin Preston, has provided a digest version of a 1908 article published by the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times.