Pocket Mirrors & Pre-Pro Whiskey Advertising

If it had not been for the efforts of a New York inventor named John Wesley Hyatt to find a substitute for elephant ivory in billiard balls, the artifacts shown here would not exist.  As the result of his experiments he created a substance we call celluloid — the world’s first industrial plastic.  

Put into mass production in 1872, celluloid rapidly became popular for its ability to be shaped and to carry elaborate colored lithographic images. In particular it was suited as backing for small mirrors that could be stowed away in a pocket.  Because celluloid took color well it proved a good venue for advertising, as the pre-Prohibition whiskey merchants quickly realized.

Walter B. Duffy of Rochester, New York,made the unsupported claim that “malt whiskey” really was medicine and even convinced some Temperance advocates.   Duffy backed up his fiction by concocting a story that his remedy was made from a formula worked out fifty years earlier by “one of the World’s Greatest Chemists.”  The distiller featured a trade mark of a bearded scientist who apparently had discovered this wonder liquid.  The old gent appeared on many Duffy items, including a giveaway hand mirror.  

Among others who recognized the marketing value of these artifacts were J & A Freiberg whose Cincinnati liquor house enjoyed a 62-year life from just after the Civil War until the coming of National Prohibition.  One of their many brands was “Puck Rye,” a mischievous character in Shakespeare’s play, “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”  Puck is represented here  on a pocket mirror by a small boy with a top hat and whiskey bottle.  

Comely women often were depicted on pocket mirrors.  George Alegretti, a grocer, liquor dealer and saloonkeeper in Stockton, California, provided the world with the archetype beauty of the time, replete with bouffant hairdo and bee-sting lips.  Alegretti’s giveaway mirror illustrates in the flowers how well celluloid took delicate colors.

The “Harvest King” mirror presents a photographic image of a woman in advertising its brand of whiskey, said to make “A sick man well and a well man happy.”  This brand originated with the Danciger Brothers of Kansas City who fashioned themselves as the Harvest King Distilling Company.  In fact, they were “rectifiers,” blending whiskeys bought from authentic distilleries.  

Pocket mirrors came in two shapes, both round and ovals, with typical size for the latter at 2 3/4 by 1 3/4 inches. An ad was on the back, a reflective surface on the front.  As shown on this example for “Good Friends” whiskey, often the ovals represented a whiskey barrel with one end devoted to the advertising.  Although Samuel Goodfriend of Wellsburg, West Virginia, meant his to represent comity between Quaker and Native American, they could be passing a bottle.

It is not a coincidence that the pocket mirror for Bald Eagle Whiskey, would advertise the flagship brand of S. F. Petts & Co. The driving force behind the Boston liquor wholesalers, Sanford Petts, was himself a certifiable Yankee Doodle Dandy. Many of his forebears had served General Washington gallantly in the Revolutionary War.  By using the national symbol to sell whiskey Petts was invoking his patriotic heritage.

Originally from Bowling Green, Virginia, Henry Gunst, a Confederate soldier, migrated with his wife and children to Richmond after the war and founded a liquor firm, claiming to be both a distiller and whiskey blender.  Although his partner Straus appears to have exited early, Gunst kept the original name.  The liquor firm advertised widely in regional newspapers and claimed outlets for its whiskey and other liquor in the Mid-Atlantic region and as far south as Florida.  Gunst also carried on a vigorous mail order trade, particularly in states and localities that had enacted anti-liquor laws.

 

John Casper, a well-known distiller in North Carolina, was dislodged from the state by prohibition laws.  He thereupon moved some of his operation to Arkansas, as the “proprietor” of the Uncle Sam Distilling Company in Fort Smith. An ad for this firm indicates he took Casper brands like “Gold Band” and “Golden Rose” whiskey with him.  His pocket mirror is unique for showing a primitive still.

Calvert Whiskey was named after Lord Calvert, the first governor of Maryland.  It was a brand from the Maryland Distilling Company, under the leadership of Albert Gottshalk with his son, Joseph.  Organizing about 1894 and closing only with National Prohibition, the Gottschalks successfully marketed Calvert Whiskey to become a highly popular national brand.

The Orinoco brand of whiskey, advertised by a pocket mirror, was created by an Irish immigrant named Edward Quinn in Alexandria, Virginia. His son, also named Edward, subsequently took the label over the border to Washington, D.C. where he established a saloon and liquor store on Pennsylvania Avenue.  When as a young father he died about 1911, his widow sold the business to another local Irishman named D. J.O’Connell.  O’Connell also got the rights to the Orinoco brand name and made the most of it.

James Maguire was thumbing his nose at the notorious “Whiskey Trust” when he refused to buckle under to the monopoly and issued his Montezuma Rye. Retail customers could buy Montezuma Rye in glass bottles, sized from quarts to flasks, or get their liquor in an attractive canteen sized metal bottle that carried a bronze plaque on each side.  McGuire also featured giveaway items to customers, including pocket mirrors.  Through the excellent color qualities of celluloid, the mirrors provided an effective merchandising tool.

Longer post on many of the “whiskey men” here may be found elsewhere on this website: Duffy, April 12, 2022; Freiberg Bros., February 3, 2014; Danciger, January 26, 2012; Petts, July 4, 2011; Gunst, August 3, 2011, Gottschalk, November 5, 2018; Casper, June 30, 2011; Quinn/O’Connell, June 25, 2013; McGuire, Nov. 18, 2017.

Louisville’s Moses Schwartz—Distiller, Deceiver, Defaulter

 This Moses — Moses Schwartz — was a Louisville distiller and banker who did not lead his followers to the Promised Land, instead legitimately was accused of siphoning off their money, resulting in financial ruin for some and even suicides.  Moreover, Schwartz seems to have escape punishment for his wrongdoing and, indeed, thrived.

Moses grew up poor.  He was born in 1852 in New York City the son of immigrant parents from Poland, Michael and Paulina Schwartz.  His father was a peddler, an individual selling a range of commodities on the street from a cart or case.  Although it was hard work with meager returns, it often was the only alternative for immigrants speaking little or no English.  Assuming the elder Schwartz initially was peddling in New York, he faced considerable competition.

When Moses was still a youngster, the family moved to Nashville, Tennessee where working conditions for his father might have seemed brighter.  The 1860 federal census found the family there.  The father was working as a peddler and an older daughter was employed as a milliner.  Moses was nine, a younger brother, Jacob, three.   A second peddler, an immigrant from Russia, with his wife and baby boarded with the Schwartz family.

The history of America is replete with stories of gifted entrepreneurs who sprang from peddler families.  Moses Schwartz was among them.  After completing his education in Nashville, he moved to Louisville, Kentucky, above.  There his fortunes took a major leap forward when he met, and in a ceremony at the city’s Jewish Temple, married Jennie Lehman, accounted in the press as “handsome and sprightly.”  More important for Schwartz’s future, Jennie’s father, I. L. Lehman, was a prosperous wholesale liquor merchant. In the same article the groom was described as “a young gentleman well known and respected…and having a high character.”  That description would be challenged in days to come.

During the next few years,  Schwartz presumably was working for his father-in-law or another of the many whiskey-related enterprises in Louisville.  About 1880, he incorporated the Sweetwood Distillery Company, with capital of $100,000.  His office was located at 126 East Main Street on Louisville’s “Whiskey Row” where Schwartz carried on a wholesale liquor business.  He also claimed to operate a distillery located at 26th Street and Broadway.  According to Byron Bush, author of Bluegrass Bourbon Barons, “His distillery had the capacity for ten thousand barrels annually. The product of his distillery was fire copper whiskey.  His business extended to every part of the United States, with shipments coming directly from his distillery.”  

While this may have been Schwartz’s advertising pitch, things were not exactly as they might have seemed.  The peddler’s son did not own the distillery or even a significant share.  The facility, shown below, was constructed and owned by the J.B. Wathen Distilling Company, composed of three members of the well known and respected Wathen family.  J.B. Wathen was president; R.N.and M.A. Wathen, respectively, secretary and treasurer. 

Also known as the Kentucky Criterion Distillery, the plant produced and marketed a variety of whiskeys under the Wathens’ own label but also leased warehouse space to liquor dealers from which they could draw product under their own brand names.  I have counted 31 such “on paper” distilleries, of which Schwartz’s “Sweetwood" was one.  This was a genius stroke by the Wathens. The system tied a plethora of liquor dealers to them as customers, charged those dealers for storing barrels of whiskey, and permitted them, with the Wathens' compliance, to advertise themselves as “distillers.”   A downside were defaults.  J.B. Wathen later told a Louisville Courier-Journal reporter that Schwartz “caught me for $45,000.”

At some point during the estimated 14 years in which Moses was actively involved in the liquor business, he decided to change course.  A member of the Louisville Board of Trade, the Commercial Club, and boasting of contacts throughout Kentucky and beyond, he seemingly had deduced that the whiskey trade was too slow and tedious a way to become very rich.  The financial sector beckoned.  He became a director of the German National Bank, the Germania Vault and Trust Company, and in 1891 organized and was elected founding president of the Louisville German Deposit Bank. With a name like “Schwartz” his credentials seemingly went unquestioned.

By 1850, immigrants represented about half of the population of Louisville, and about two-thirds of them were Germans.  During ensuing decades the German population of Louisville was large enough that entire German-speaking neighborhoods existed. Germans established their own churches, bilingual schools, and kindergartens. Social and benevolent organizations, such as singing societies, orphans' asylums, and a Turnverein (athletic club), thrived.  Banks designated “German” had a ready constituency.

Louisville’s citizens of German origin flocked to Moses Schwartz’s new bank. Hundreds of residents became depositors.  Almost overnight, the owner began spending money lavishly on himself and his family.  Schwartz bought a home for himself, wife Jennie,  and their four children, Amy, Corrine, Morton and  Charles.  Shown here undergoing repairs in recent times, it was a large three-story dwelling in a fashionable neighborhood.  It still stands.

On August 2, 1893, a local newspaper declared sardonically: “This will prove a memorable day in the financial history of Louisville.”   It had taken only two years of Schwartz’s maneuvering to send the Louisville German Deposit Bank into failure.  Moreover, he had not registered his bank in the city’s Clearing House Association.  “In its time of need none of the other banks would give it any assistance whatever.”   A bank official assured reporters that the institution was abundantly able to meet its assets and assured depositors they would lose nothing.  But Schwartz’s bank had been gutted.  Depositors lost everything.  A few were ruined to the point of suicide.  Hundreds of others faced a future of poverty.

Meanwhile Schwartz continued his financial finagling.  He declared the Sweetwood Distillery bankrupt, welching on his debt to the Wathens, and assigned all his personal assets to the Germania Vault and Trust Company, on which he sat as a director.   According to press accounts:  “Mr. Schwartz could not say what the liabilities amounted to and felt too bad to talk about the matter.”  But not too bad to plan his next move.  When irate depositors tried to see him about the situation, they found that Moses had fled Louisville.  With him had gone money from the German Deposit Bank and the German National Bank.

As expected, the multiple bank failures generated a series of investigations and lawsuits.  Moses was not present for any of them.  Leaving behind the intense legal wrangling, the former distiller led his family unscathed to a new “promised land” — New York City.  In 1901, a report came from The Big Apple that indicated Schwartz was practicing a swindle in that  city similar to the one he had pulled off in Louisville.  This time he was running an outfit called the Manhattan Merchantile Company and had borrowed $100,000 on the basis of phony asset

statements provided by him to the Seventh National Bank of New York.  When J.B. Wathen found Moses in Manhattan and accosted him over the $45,000 debt,  Schwartz pleaded that he was impoverished.  Wathen noted, however, that the former whiskey dealer was living at a posh address and appeared to be “on the high wave of prosperity.”

When the Seventh National Bank recognized the fraud behind its loan, it confronted Schwartz who responded by running again, first to Chicago and then to Philadelphia.  Discovered there by authorities he was arrested as a fugitive and taken back to New York.  The Seventh National Bank had gone belly up in the meantime, apparently the victim of its own dubious loan practices as reported by the New York Times.  So far I have been unable to find what happened to Schwartz as a result of his arrest. There are no indications that he was convicted of forgery or spent time behind bars.

Isaac Bernheim

Skip forward in time a decade later.  Schwartz came to notice living in upacale Palm Beach, Florida. In April 1911 the Louisville Courier Journal reported that Moses and his wife had been encountered there by distiller Isaac Bernheim, apparently enjoying the life of the wealthy.  He had not seen Moses in some eighteen years but was greeted warmly.   As Bernheim communicated to the newspaper, the former fugitive told  him at length how he had prospered.  

About the time Moses was on the run from authorities in 1901 his twin sons, Morton and Charles, had gone two work for a “big Wall street plunger” and were quick to learn the financial game, apparently without the need of paternal chicanery.  Both had become millionaires as a result and were among New York elites. Schwartz had invested with his sons, retired from business, and enjoyed a substantial income, Bernheim related.

All this rings true.  Moses sons, particularly Morton, had made strong reputations on Wall Street.  Said one observer of Morton:  “Schwartz quickly became well-known as a banker by making smart financial decisions that set him apart from others in the industry. His ability to spot good investments and plan strategically led to his success as a financier.”  Morton and Charles apparently also were dutiful sons, attentive despite their father’s breaches of law.

Moses lived to be 72 years old, dying in December 20, 1923.  After a Jewish funeral service, he was buried in the Bronx, New York, at Woodlawn Cemetery.  Shown below, the Schwartz Mausoleum (Sassafras Plot, Sec. 120) is an elegant resting place, replete with sculptured panels and stained glass windows. In time Jennie and other family members also would be buried there.  Thus was ended the career of a master scam artist whose ability to escape justice and continue to prosper deserves to be the stuff of legends.

Note:  For this post I leaned on the book by Byron Bush cited earlier, leaving out much of the copious information he provides on the legal wrangling in Louisville over Schwartz's bankruptcies.  The Louisville Courier Journal was another major source.  This website also contains posts on the Wathen distilling family, August 1, 2020, and the Bernheim Brothers, December 10, 2014.

 

 

“Chicago Joe” and Her Reign in Helena, Montana

During her relatively short life, she was known by multiple names:  Mary Welch, Josephine Airey,  “Chicago Joe,” Mrs. James Hensley, and the “Richest Woman in Helena. Montana.”  She perhaps is best remembered today for her career as a saloonkeeper and brothel madam of the Old West.

She was born about 1844 as Mary Welch, a fairly common surname in Protestant Northern Ireland.  Evidence indicates that the family was Catholic, which may have contributed to their decision to emigrate to America in 1858 when she was 14 years old.  The family landed in New York and apparently determined to stay there.  Her parents doted on the girl, making sure of her education, including attendance at a “etiquette school.”  As Mary grew to maturity in “The Big Apple,” the Irish lass determined to change her name and settled on Josephine Airey, a surname with Scottish origins.  

As Josephine, she soon tired of New York and looked west to Chicago as a likely place to seek her fortune.  In Chicago, where she would be no embarrassment to her family, she gravitated to prostitution.  Although she would carry the nickname “Chicago Joe” for the rest of her life, Josephine’s stay in the Windy City was relatively short.  Still restless and scouting for quick riches, she was attracted to Helena, Montana, founded as a gold camp and established as a city in 1864. Three years later Josephine arrived and immediately went to work.  She had come to the right place.  As a result of the gold rush, Helena rapidly was becoming a wealthy city.  By 1888 an estimated 50 millionaires resided there. 

Helena MT in late 1880s

 

Josephine knew exactly what the miners needed.  At the age of 23 she opened a brothel in Helena in a log cabin.  Despite the primitive surroundings, she employed a small orchestra to provide additional entertainment for the male patrons.  Noted one observer:  “Josephine’s brothel took off in terms of popularity.”   Before long she moved to larger, more elegant quarters. 

In May 1884, Chicago Joe’s establishment was challenged when a passenger on a train stopping in Helena headed straight to the local police.  He reported that seven girls who had come into town on the same train with him had been lured to Montana from the East by Josephine on the promise of work in a local hotel. Their true destination, he claimed, was dancing and selling drinks in her bawdy house.  As reported in the Helena Daily Independent:  “The report soon gained pretty general circulation and a good deal of interest in this affair was shown.”  The mayor sent two officers to investigate.  Upon returning from Josephine’s establishment the men reported that in Chicago when the girls boarded the train — a trip paid for by Josephine — they knew “what service would be expected of them.”

Still skeptical, the newspaper sent a reporter to investigate further.  “The reporter rang the doorbell of Chicago Joe’s residence and the summons was answered by the proprietess herself.”  She gathered the seven women, all of whom attested that before embarking to Helena they fully comprehended the work they were to do.  “This of course settled the matter, and the reporter withdrew.”   The women clearly had found themselves more affluent than they had ever been as they shared in the profits of drinks sold, dancing with customers and “personal services.”  The prospect of meeting and marrying one of Helena’s millionaires was further incentive.

The reporter might have inquired but apparently did not about an incident that had occurred at Josephine’s several days earlier.  A longtime employee, a “dancer” named Martha Hughes, better known as “Dutch Leina,” was found dead on the premises, seemingly from the effects of morphine, self-administered.  “An empty envelope marked “15 grains “ morphine was found in the room…It is supposed that the the diseased took it all at one dose.” reported the Daily Independent.  A coroner’s jury ruled Dutch Leina’s death a suicide.  No motive was given for her act other than she had been drinking heavily on that day and had to be put to bed.

No amount of controversy seemed to impede Josephine’s upward trajectory in Helena.  When a fire in 1874 damaged buildings owned by residents who lacked the resource to rebuild, she bought up the properties, refurbishing them and renting out the space.  A shrewd business woman, Josephine is said to have mortgaged each property, including “three dozen pair of underclothes.”  As a result, she became one of the largest—and richest— landowners in Helena.  By this time she also opened the largest brothel in town, shown here, located at the corner of State and Joliet Streets.  Josephine called it the “Grand,” a building that stood until torn down in the 1970s.

Possibly because her real estate dealings brought her into frequent contact with the businessmen of Helena, Josephine decided to marry and have a man around able to assist her.  She met James T. Hensley, decided he was a likely prospect and wed him in 1878.  Hensley may not have been her first husband, it turns out.  I have found a document indicating that under the name “Mary Welch” she was recorded marrying an Albert Jenkins in Montana in April 1869.  After that nothing more is heard of Jenkins.

With Hensley as a partner, Josephine continued her ascent in Helena.  With her husband’s help she built and opened the Red Light Saloon and a large variety theatre, costing $30,000 to construct.  (That is equivalent to just short of $1 million today.)  The couple called it “The Coliseum.”  The venue was a success with its fancy furnishings, beautiful girls who performed — and an adjoining brothel.

Josephine became known for her elegant dress, fancy lifestyle and the elegant parties she and Hensley threw.  Shown here is an open invitation from Josephine for a “masked ball” on Christmas Eve 1883 at the Red Light Saloon.  As shown here, at such occasions Josephine would appear in all her finery.  Wearing diamond rings on her fingers, elegant earrings, a large necklace, and a fancy tiara, she had every inch of a regal bearing.  The madam known as “Chicago Joe” had become the “Queen of the Red Light District.” She also gained a reputation for her generous donations to local charities and political candidates.

Her example set a business model for other Montana women, including her former “girls.”  In 1875 Lou Couselle, after a stint with Josephine, opened her own brothel in Bozeman, Montana.  She also used mortgages and the profits of prostitution to her advantage.  At the time of her death Lou had an estate of $20,000 (current value $616,000).  “Mollie "Crazy Belle” Crafton was another woman in Helena reputed to have followed the path blazed by Josephine:  “Mollie built the Castle Bordello, which cost over $12,000 in the early 1880s. Josephine's success clearly had a profound effect on the minds of other women in the area at this time,”  recorded one observer.

Power and popularity, however, could be fleeting in the Old West.  As an absentee owner, Josephine was vulnerable to theft of her horses and cattle.  An incident occurred in April 1882 when John Miles, alias Bronco Johnny, with an accomplice, raided her ranch in nearby Silver Creek.  Although forewarned, lawmen waiting in ambush caught the sidekick.  Johnny got away with a stolen horse, at least temporarily.

Josephine also faced legal problems.  In 1885 the Montana legislature instituted a ban on brothels, key to her business empire.  Many such houses in the state were forced to shut down.  When she did not, authorities took her to court.  Able to afford the best legal talent in Montana, her lawyer ensured she was found innocent.  He pointed out to the court that the law plainly stated that the brothels to be shut down were “hurdy gurdy” joints, where music was provided by turning a crank on a box.  He was able to demonstrate that Josephine had never used that method of entertaining.  Nonetheless, for a time afterward, she closed her houses, quietly opening a new one later as adjunct to her “Variety Theater.”

Apparently reluctant to leave him, Josephine was also having difficulty with husband Hensley.  He was drinking heavily and, often when drunk, gambled away her money. In January 1883 she placed a notice, seen above, in the Daily Independent notifying liquor dealers in Helena not to sell Hensley intoxicants, gambling houses not to let him play, and for no one to lend him money.  “Any one that does contrary to this notice I will prosecute.”  She signed the notice:  “Mrs. Josephine Hensley.” 

A crushing financial blow for came for Chicago Joe with the Financial Panic of 1893.  Apparently caused by a series of negative worldwide economic developments, including a stock crash on Wall Street, the ripple effect reached Helena where Josephine found herself highly leveraged and her creditors demanding immediate payment.  She watched as one by one her large property holdings were gobbled up by others.  Left virtually penniless, except for the Red Light Saloon, she and Hensley were forced to live in small rooms above the drinking establishment they had built.

In October 1899 Josephine was struck down by pneumonia at the age of about 55.  The glory of her early days in Helena was gone.  Nonetheless her death saddened many who had come to know her and made front-page news in the Daily Independent.  Her obituary there emphasized her generosity and charitable giving.  Following rites of the Catholic Church, Josephine was buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Helena.  She is remembered today in Helena’s Montana Historical Society Museum where her ornate make-up box, below, is on display. 

Notes:  Josephine’s story is told in several sites on the Internet as well as articles in the Helena Daily Independent, that consistently referred to her as “Chicago Joe.”  Wikipedia also contains information and photographs of this enterprising woman of the rowdy Old West.

Eureka! I Spy a $2,600 Bar Token.

The image that opens this post is of a celluloid bar token with a face value of 12.5 cents.  Two of them would be enough to buy a shot of reasonably good whiskey at the Owl Liquor Company and saloon in Eureka, Nevada.  Not long ago that token was sold at auction for $2,600,  enough to buy 5,000 shots and set ‘em up for most every drinking man, in 19th Century Eureka.

Shown below in the late 1800s, Eureka was a boom town.  The community, shown above, had been settled in 1864 by a group of prospectors who had discovered silver-lead rock, attracting two competing mining companies to the area.  Mining for silver and lead triggered an economic boom town to emerge, one that in 1873 became, and still is, the county seat.  The town’s population surged, reaching 10,000 by 1878.

To satisfy the ever-thirsty miners, liquor companies and saloons proliferated,  among them a “watering hole” called The Owl Liquor Company.  Although the identity of the proprietor has faded into the mists of history, he left us a trade card that purports to offer a bit of “Western philosophy.

The Eureka saloon keeper showed similar imagination in issuing bar tokens, usually minted from metals like copper and iron.  He was using celluloid — celluloid — the world’s first industrial plastic.  Put into mass production in 1872, celluloid rapidly became popular for its ability to be shaped and to carry elaborate colored lithographic images. In particular it was suited as backing for small items that could be stowed away in a pocket.  Because celluloid took color well it proved a good venue for advertising, as the proprietor of the Owl Liquor Company saloon realized.

He provided his customers with a winsome picture of a baby girl with long curly hair, wearing a frilly dress and holding a large red rose.  It is a highly attractive image, one that a customer might wish to keep as a “lucky piece” rather than trade it at the Owl bar for half a drink of whiskey.  The company and artist behind the token are not revealed.  My surmise is that it may have been the product of the Celluloid Manufacturing Company of Newark, New Jersey.

Owl Liquor also produced a second celluloid drinks token.  This one, however, lacks the innocence of the first.  Shown below it depicts a semi-nude woman with a “come hither” look and gesture, wearing what appear to be a few shreds of clothing.  This token shows signs of discoloration typical of many aging celluloid artifacts. It also has sold in recent years, fetching $1,300 at auction despite its less than pristine condition. 

The Owl Liquor Company likely went out of business as national prohibitionary laws and finally a “dry” Constitutional amendment was adopted in 1919.  By that time the silver and lead mines had played out.  Eureka’s population plummeted from about 10,000 to 414 today. (2020 census).  The town is shown here as it currently looks.

Eureka exploits its isolation. It is located in the southern part of Eureka County at 6,461 feet elevation in the Nevada’s Diamond Mountains.  Shown here is a sign that greets visitors: “You are entering the friendliest town on the loneliest road in America.”  The nearest towns via the highway that bisects the Eureka are Austin, 70 miles west (pop. 167), and Ely 77 miles east (pop. 3,924).  

As “The Loneliest Road in America,” U.S. Route 50 at Eureka is one of the locations where the U.S. National Park Service provides a stamp for its travel “passport.” attesting that the user has accessed Eureka and its main street.  Of course the town museum, in a former newspaper office, must be open to obtain the certification. 

My assumption is that the Owl Liquor Company had its own house brand of liquor, as did most other saloons that advertised themselves as companies, indicating a business beyond just serving drinks over a bar.  That tradition is being carried on by Joe and Lauren Luben in Eureka.  They are owners of a blended whiskey line they call “Two Bitch,” named after their dogs.  Three bourbon varieties are created in their building shown in the photo.  In Eureka’s boom days the structure was a Methodist Church and now a tourist stop.

Eureka is living proof that no place in America is too small or too isolated to produce whiskey.