Whiskey Men Who Loved Animals

Foreword:  A number of whiskey men —distillers and liquor dealers — during their working years also showed a bent toward animal husbandry.  Most commonly distillers had pens associated with their whiskey-making, feeding their spent mash to cattle being fattened for the dinner table.  Others seemed to have had more affection for their animals.  Here are brief stories of three such men.

As hard as it may be to believe, the young man with the cigar shown here talking to a rooster and surrounded by newly hatched chicks had an earlier, highly successful career as a distiller and liquor dealer in Kansas City, Missouri. His name was Ernest Kellerstrass, a man who truly loved chickens.

Kellerstrass, still in his 30s, showed extraordinary initiative.  About 1899 he established his company and located his main office in Kansas City, selling stock in the Kellerstrass Distilling Company at $10 a share.  He also bought a distillery in Paradise, Clay County, Missouri, that had been founded about a decade earlier. Through his distillery he was able to insure a secure supply of raw whiskey for his brands.  With success he created a separate sales depot across Missouri in St. Louis.  As shown below on his letterhead,  Kellerstrass emphasized his access to railway express to send his goods west from Kansas City and east from St. Louis.

Inexplicably, in 1904 and at the height of his success, Kellerstrass, still short of 40 years old, sold out his distillery and mail order liquor empire to a syndicate from St. Louis.  Meanwhile, Kellerstrass with wife and family retired to his chicken ranch outside of town.  He built new chicken houses according to his own design and began to breed a superior kind of poultry.  The eggs from the Kellerstrass Farm became known region-wide for their freshness and quality.  Shown below is truckload of his eggs on their way to consumers.  

Soon many in America would know about Kellerstrass and his chickens. In 1910, after only a few years in business,  he self-published a book called “The Kellerstrass Way of Raising Poultry” and charged $1 for it.  The picture that began this article, showing the author talking to a rooster, was on the cover.   

Clearly very proud of the progress he had made with his chickens, the book is full of advice to poultry raisers.  Kellerstrass introduced the volume by saying:  “It has been constant aim in writing this book to use common sense, and to give the public as much good practical advice as I possibly could,  and remember, that this book was written by a man who is out working with his chickens ever day.

Milton L. Eppstein, shown here in 1914, had two evident passions in life, good whiskey and Jersey milk cows. He managed to combine the two into a Fort Worth, Texas, liquor business that exhibited both financial success and a distinctive bovine flavor. In short, he succeeded in mixing whiskey and cream. 

When Eppstein selected a flagship brand, he looked to his hobby for inspiration. He had fallen in love with the Jersey cow, a breed known for its docile disposition, lovely eyes, and high butterfat cream. His stock farm became known as one of the finest in the Southwest. It was no surprise then when Milton named his select whiskey, “Jersey Cream.”  

Eppstein’s bovine passion was most evident in a pair of freestanding metal signs advertising Jersey Cream, cut in the form of a cow and calf. The cow stood almost four feet tall and the calf was two feet.  So notable were Eppstein’s metal cows that they were taken by members of the Fort Worth Ad Club to Toronto upon the occasion of the 14th North American convention of advertising men. As a result, Milton was twitted in a contemporary publication for being the owner of a herd of iron cows and “sacred bovines.” A 1914 caricature showed him at his favorite pastime.  

Nevertheless, time was running out for Milton and his Jersey Cream Whiskey. In 1916 Texas voted statewide Prohibition and L. Eppstein & Son became history. Eppstein retired to New York City, listed as living on Seventh Avenue by the 1920 Census. Death came five years later, while Eppstein was on a visit to Fort Worth, likely to visit his beloved herd of Jersey cows.

In 1903, with a partner, Henry Figge opened a wholesale liquor house at 353 East Water Street in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  Figge’s company quickly met with success.  His flagship brand was Custom House Rye, with a label that featured the very elegant Milwaukee building.  Dating from 1855, it had been constructed by the U.S Department of the Treasury after the design of the noted architect Ammi Burnham Young.  The building still stands.

Figge’s animal interests involved both canine and porcine. Known as a dog fancier, the 1905 Field Dog Stud Book listed him as owning a champion beagle named “Foster Rye,” likely named by him for rye whiskey.  Registered as a “black, white and tan,” Foster Rye had a long pedigree.  Its sire was “Bellman”, out of “Florist” and “Bashful”;  its dam was “Staley’s Rubber” out of “Staley" and “Sailor’s Ranney.”

Seemingly ever restless, Figge, now with considerable wealth, retired from the liquor trade entirely in 1914 and bought a large farm on Cold Spring Road in Milwaukee County not far from the village of Hales Corners.  There he raised Poland China hogs.  The oldest American breed of swine, Poland China hogs are typically black, sometimes with white patches, and are known for their large size  For a dozen years Figge was known throughout the Upper Midwest for his prize-winning pigs.  In 1926, perhaps in declining health, he sold his farm and moved back to Milwaukee where shortly after he died.

Note:  Fuller biographies of each of these whiskey men can be found on this blog at the following dates:  Earnest Kellerstrass, July 6, 2013;  Milton Eppstein, March 4, 2012, and Henry Figge, June 27, 2015.

Milwaukee’s Henry Figge Was a “Travelin’ Man”

 When Henry Figge died at the age of eighty, his 1933 Milwaukee Journal obituary emphasized his career as a liquor dealer but also reflected aspects of his rambling nature.  Figge had been a “travelin’ man” throughout much of his working life.  Moreover, during his declining years, when most elders prefer to stay in place, he had abjured any real home and preferred constant travel.

Figge was born in Germany in 1853.  Of his early life, little is known, but he emigrated to the United States in 1871 at the age of 19, possibly one of the many youths seeking to avoid mandatory service in the Prussian army.  He early settled in Milwaukee, a city with a large German population where the German language was spoken in business, churches, and in every day society.  From early on Henry seems to have had a talent for the whiskey trade, going to work for the Wm. Bergenthal Co. as a traveling salesman. [See my post on Bergenthal, September 2014.]   Figge’s travels took him throughout Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, as well as neighboring Illinois and Minnesota.

So successful “on the road” was he that Bergenthal eventually made Figge a vice president of his firm, as evident here on an 1890 advertisement.  In the 1900 federal census Henry gave his occupation as a “traveler” selling liquor and wines.  He was living 470 South Eighth Street with his wife of some nine years, Ida J. Figge.  She had been born in Wisconsin of German parentage and was ten years his junior.  With them was their only child, son Alfred, born in 1884.

From his boss Figge learned the process of “rectifying” whiskey, that is, combining and blending raw whiskeys to achieved desired color, taste and alcohol content.  But Bergenthal was a difficult sort, famed for his violent temper.  By 1903 Figge clearly was fed up with his boss and struck out on his own.  With a partner, E.J. Doyle, he opened a wholesale liquor house at 353 East Water Street.  Even then Figge was not through with Bergenthal, suing him in 1906 for money he contended was illegally siphoned from the firm and of which Figge demanded a share.  He lost the suit.

The Figge-Doyle Company soon enough met with its own success. It featured a number of proprietary brands, including “Custom House,” “Foster,” “Gopher State,” “Home Aid,”  “Luster,” and “Turnpike.”   Unlike much of his competition,  Figge went to the considerable trouble and expense of registering each of these proprietary brands for federal trademarks:  Foster in 1905; Custom House in 1906; Gopher, Home Aid, and Luster in 1907, and Turnpike in 1908.

The firm issued its whiskeys in both amber and clear bottles, flasks and quarts, usually with the name “Figge-Doyle” and “Milwaukee” embossed on the front.  This embossing often would be hidden underneath one of the well-designed company paper labels.  Particularly notable was the label for Custom House Rye, below, that featured the very elegant building.  Dating from 1855, it had been constructed by the U.S Department of the Treasury after the design of the noted architect Ammi Burnham Young.  The building still stands. The use of the Milwaukee landmark may indicate that Figge saw his principal market as the city and its environs.

Figge seems to have had a constant yen for movement and change.  By 1912 he had broken with Taylor and had gone into to the liquor business with his brother, Gustave, under the firm name Figge Brothers.  The new firm was located at 97 Wisconsin Avenue, a few steps from Lake Michigan.  The company sales offices were on the first floor of the Railway Exchanged Building, shown here.  Built at the corner of Broadway and Wisconsin, this tall structure, shown below right, was the cornerstone of Milwaukee’s East Side commercial district and a prime location for a liquor distributorship. Henry’s old firm, now at 329-332 West Water Street, retained the name of Figge-Doyle even after he had departed.  My assumption is that Figge’s name commanded considerable respect in Milwaukee and the new management made a business decision not to change it.

Throughout this period Figge also was achieving a reputation as a dog fancier.  The 1905 Field Dog Stud Book lists him as owning a champion beagle named “Foster Rye,” likely named by him for rye whiskey.  The dog had been bred by F. J. Figge of Ossian, Iowa, likely a relative.  Registered as a “black, white and tan,” Foster Rye had a long pedigree.  Its sire was “Bellman”, out of “Florist” and “Bashful”;  its dam was “Staley’s Rubber” out of “Staley" and “Sailor’s Ranney.”

Seemingly ever restless, Figge, now with considerable wealth, retired from the liquor trade entirely in 1914 and bought a large farm on Cold Spring Road in Milwaukee County not far from the village of Hales Corners.  There he raised prize-winning Poland China hogs.  In 1926, perhaps tiring of farming, he sold his holdings and moved back to Milwaukee.  The cause given was his wife’s health but the move also may have reflected his restless nature. A few months later Ida Figge died and was buried in Milwaukee’s Catholic Calvary Cemetery.

His wife’s passing turned Figge into a perpetual vagabond.  According to his obituary, after

her death he never maintained a permanent residence:  “He visited relatives and traveled,” according to the Milwaukee Journal.  In August 1933 while visiting relatives in Milwaukee, Henry was stricken and taken to St. Mary's Hospital by ambulance.  He died later that day.  With his son, Alfred, and grandson, Henry Jr., at the graveside, Figge, age 80, was laid to rest beside Ida.  A monument marks their graves.

While his newspaper obituary identified Henry Figge as a “retired wholesale liquor distributor,”  I think of him as a man who sailed from his German homeland to America, traveled Wisconsin and neighboring states as a salesman, ventured into and then out of three Milwaukee liquor firms, moved on to raise pigs — only to abandoned that occupation, and in his elder years kept no fixed address, roaming from place to place.  “I’m a Travelin’ Man” is the title of a vintage country tune.  It might have been Henry Figge’s theme song.