George Benz: Realizing the American Dream

George Benz, shown here, and the liquor empire he built are an American success story of epic proportions. Born in Osthofen Germany in 1838, he emigrated to the United States in 1853 at the age of 15. After working for three years in Chicago he moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, which would be his home for the remainder of his life.

In St. Paul he found a wife, Rosa Voehringer. Married in 1861, the couple would have eight children. About the same time Benz established a sports eatery in St. Paul. Indicating his devotion to his new country, he called it the “United States Billiard Hall and Restaurant.” By 1865, he had branched out into a liquor wholesale business with Major C.J. Becht. They also imported wines and other spirits.

With Becht’ s death in 1878, Benz became the sole owner in the business and lost no time in expanding it not only in the Twin Cities but into the distilling business across the country. He apparently was seeking a guaranteed supply of good whiskey for his business of blending and bottling liquor.

Benz’s letterhead claims -- and I have not found contrary information -- that he was a part owner of the Spring Gardens and Federal Distillery in Baltimore, a city famous for its rye whiskey, the Meadville Distillery in Meadville Pennsylvania, also famous for its rye liquor, and the Merchant Distillery in Terre Haute, Indiana. But Benz’s pride was outright ownership of the Eminence Distillery, located at a town in Kentucky with the same name. There he produced his flagship brand, “Old Blue Ribbon,” which he advertised nationally.

He marketed Old Blue Ribbon in both quart and flask-sized bottles and issued a earthenware jug with a remarkable glaze to be used back-of-the-bar. I consider it to be among the top five whiskey jugs ever produced in America. He also issued an attractive jug for his “Oldays Pure Rye.”

The company used myriad brand names: "Aurora Rock & Rye", "Dellwood", "Doctor's Special", "Hiawatha", "Jack Silver", "Maltese Gin", "Minnehaha", "N. P.",, "Pickwick", "Pickwick Club", "Royal Scot", "Sundown Gin",, and "Wenonah." Emblematic of his devotion to his adopted country Benz featured an “Uncle Sam’s Monogram” whiskey. He also produced “Geo. Benz and Sons Appeltine Bitters” in a fancy bottle that made no medicinal claims.

His building, shown here, was four stories at 81 E. 6th Street in St. Paul. Several aspects of his operation were carried out there, from mixing laboratory to motor fleet. He rented the basements of nearby buildings for storage space for whiskey, wine, mineral water, and soft drinks -- all marketed under the Benz name.

In time, as his five sons achieved maturity, he brought them into the business and changed the firm name to Geo. Benz & Sons. His oldest boy, George G., went to Europe and earned a doctorate in chemistry before joining the firm. Son Herman opened a Benz branch in Duluth, Minnesota. Son Paul worked along side his father.

In addition to his business acumen, Benz had a sense of public service to the country that had given him so much. He was elected and served three terms in the Minnesota Legislature and was a member of the St. Paul School Board, as well as participating in many local philanthropic organizations. He lived in a mansion, shown here, that was one of St. Paul’s most notable.

Benz died in 1908 at the age of 69 and is buried in St. Paul’s Oakland Cemetery along with other members of his family.  The family monument features an angel.  His sons kept the business going after his demise. Then, possibly seeing Prohibition on the horizon, the family abandoned the liquor trade, sold the business, and went into real estate, where they also prospered.

In a very real sense George Benz realized the American Dream. Arriving in this country with little more than the clothes on his back he used intelligence and creativity to grow into one of the largest liquor operations in the Upper Midwest. In the process he “gave back” by a record of public service and private philanthropy.

Note: This post was recast from an article in my book, “The American Whiskey Jug.” It in turn was indebted to Ron Feldhaus, whose book “The Bottles, Breweriana and Advertising Jugs of Minnesota, 1850-1920, is an excellent source of information on Minnesota pre-pro whiskey men.

Edson Bradley and the Making of "Old Crow"

Growing up, Edson Bradley probably could not tell sour mash from sweet corn, but in maturity he turned whiskey-making into abounding wealth. In the process he made possible the rise of Old Crow bourbon -- still one of America’s most popular whiskeys.

Bradley was born in 1852 and grew up a large frame house in Roxbury, Connecticut,

where his father, Edson Sr, was a partner in a shoe manufacturing company. Although details about Edson Jr.’s early life are sketchy, he was born into money, well educated and eventually trained for a career in finance. While still in his twenties he became associated with Paris, Allen & Company, a leading New York and London financial and importing firm.  He is shown here in maturity.

Immediately after the Civil War, members of the firm had become interested in whiskey production as an investment. They connected financially with Frankfort, Kentucky, distillers that included the estimable Colonel E.J. Taylor, a major force in Kentucky bourbon. Together the money men and the whiskey makers built a distillery in Frankfort, shown here. At the same time they purchased the nearby Old Crow distillery, closed it down, and moved the operations to the new facility along with the brand name.

The Crow name had particular importance. A Scottish physician, James Crow (1789-1856) is credited by many for inventing the sour mash method of making whiskey and for being the father of modern bourbon. After his death his recipe was handed down through several distillers until purchased by the Taylor group. Through the years the Old Crow brand repeatedly has invoked James Crow’s heritage, including ads purportedly showing him delivering whiskey to the American statesman, Henry Clay.

In 1887 the firm incorporated in Kentucky as W.A. Gaines and Co. New York-based Marshall Allen of Paris, Allen became president and Bradley a vice president. Although the whiskey industry has always emphasized the backwoods, rustic nature of distilling, the truth is more complicated. New York Wall Street investors frequently were directly involved in the whiskey trade. Almost immediately upon joining the distillery the youthful Bradley was anointed the principal spokesman for the Gaines company and represented its interests and those of the distilling industry on Wall Street and in the halls of Congress. 

A black crow early became a fixture on its labels. Bold and interesting advertising, exemplified by a racy trade card and a giveaway shot glass, were part of the success. The operation became highly profitable, selling the Old Crow brand nationwide. The distillery was expanded.

As the driving force behind Old Crow, Bradley soon became a national figure. In 1884 the New York Times identified him as a leader of the Wine and Spirits Exchange -- an early attempt at a “Whiskey Trust.” In the process Bradley also was becoming immensely wealthy. Soon the press was referring to Bradley as a liquor millionaire and a kingpin of the American distilling industry. 

About this time he moved his family from New York City to Washington, D.C. He bought a large Victorian home on fashionable DuPont Circle and tore it down to build the grandest mansion the Nation’s Capitol had ever seen.

Bradley’s home was truly his castle, featuring towers, turrets, and stained glass windows. It contained a Gothic chapel,  an art gallery -- to hold his extensive collection of ceramics, tapestries and books -- and a 500 seat theater he called “Aladdin's Palace.” Some interior rooms were transferred intact from France. Almost instantly the Bradleys became a regular item on the society pages of Washington newspapers. Edson’s daughter, Julia, had a splashy and well-publicized “coming out” party in 1894 that drew a crowd of the rich and powerful to his home.

At the same time Bradley was finding that success had its downside. Because “Old Crow” had achieved national fame as a brand, other whiskey organizations were using some variation of the name on their products. Some of these were licensed bottlers. Others simply appropriated the Crow name and prestige. W.A. Gaines Company sought to fend off this competition by registering the Old Crow trademark in 1887. When that move failed to deter the copycats, Bradley and his colleagues registered again in 1897 and repeated the process in 1904 and again in 1909.

The principal culprit was the Rock Springs Distilling Company of Daviess County, Kentucky. It persisted in selling a whiskey it called Hellman’s Old Crow, above right. Eventually the dispute found its way into the courts. A Federal judge in Kentucky decided for Bradley and the Gaines Company. That decision was reversed by a Federal Appeals Court and in 1918, the case found its way to the United States Supreme Court. The High Court ruled in favor of Bradley and ordered Rock Springs Distilling to “cease and desist” its use of the Old Crow name. We can speculate that at least a few of the Supreme Court Justices had been guests at Edson’s palatial Washington home.

Bradley’s victory quickly became a hollow one as National Prohibition was imposed a year later. His company struggled along until 1922 when it was dissolved and the Gaines distillery was left for a time abandoned and derelict. Now 70 years old and enormously wealthy from Old Crow profits, Bradley was restless. He determined to leave Washington, move to fashionable Newport, Rhode Island, and, almost incredibly, to take his castle with him.

Brick by brick, tile by tile, the mansion was dismantled and transported to Rhode Island while the fascinated populace of Washington looked on. Ripley’s “Believe It or Not” highlighted the event for a national audience. In Newport Bradley purchased a large existing home called Seaview Terrace. He joined the two structures to become one of the largest mansions in America. Shown above, it featured 17 rooms on the first floor, 25 on the second, and 12 on the third.

Time, however, was catching up with the Bradleys. A few months after construction was completed on Seaview Terrace, Mrs. Bradley died there, age 76. Six years later in 1935, Edson, while on a trip to London, also died. He was 83. Today the mansion in Newport still stands. From 1966 to 1971 it was the setting for a spooky ABC daytime soap opera called “Dark Shadows.” The house currently serves as a dormitory for a local college.

The Old Crow brand survived and thrived. Immediately after Repeal the American Medicinal Spirits Co. bought the Frankfort plant, renovated it and later turned it over to National Distillers Products Co. which purchased the brand name in 1947. That firm operated the distillery, shown here, until it went out of the whiskey business in 1985. National Distillers then sold the brand and facility to the Jim Beam Brands Co.  It shut the plant but has continued to market Old Crow.

George W. Meredith -- From Orphan Boy to Medicine Man

Some of whiskiana’s most interesting containers and advertising might not ever have existed if it had not been for the initiative of a orphaned and virtually unschooled pottery worker who rose to fame and fortune in Ohio by selling liquor and calling it medicine. His name was George W. Meredith.

The story begins in Utica, New York, where Meredith was born in April 1850, the son of Thomas and Elizabeth Meredith. Not long after the family moved to Trenton, New Jersey in 1852, Thomas died. Elizabeth soon followed him to the grave, leaving George a orphan from boyhood. The youth soon abandoned school to learn a trade as a potter and in 1877 moved to East Liverpool, Ohio.

During the late 19th and early 20th Century this town on the Ohio River was America’s largest producer of ceramic table and vanity wares. Known widely as “Crockery City,” in 1887 East Liverpool boasted 270 kilns and annually produced ceramic products valued at $25 million -- in a time when 25 cents would buy dinner. The largest pottery in town was KT&K -- Knowles, Taylor & Knowles, founded in 1854.

After a year working for a small pottery operation, Meredith in 1878 joined KT&K, working in one of the lowlist jobs -- as a jiggerman. This was the relatively unskilled the laborer who turned the potter’s wheel to shape the clay. But the occupation did not suit Meredith and may even have injured his health. After a little more than two years he left the factory, ostensibly on his doctor’s recommendation.

Almost immediately this 30-year-old determined that a far better occupation was making and selling whiskey. The late 19th century was a time when saloons were opening in every city and town. They did not lack for customers. Lots of folks were going into the whiskey business, many as rectifiers -- operations that refined and blended liquors made by others. Meredith was a rectifier. He rented a storeroom in downtown East Liverpool and with one employee began buying grain neutral spirits in large quantities and blending his own brands, adding color and flavoring.

It soon became clear that despite his lack of book learning, Meredith had a real genius for marketing his whiskey. Early on, for example, he called his principal brand “Meredith’s Diamond Club Rye.” Diamond Club was the name of East Liverpool’s most prestigious grouping of businessmen. It took lots of nerve for Meredith to associate his liquor with the club and his use of the name raised considerable ruckus around town. Before long, however, Diamond Club whiskey was a big seller, not only in East Liverpool, but in Ohio, and eventually across America. Eventually the businessmen’s club surrendered and changed its name to “Buckeye Club.”

Key to the popularity of his whiskey were Meredith’s advertising campaigns. His signs were painted on barn sides and rock outcroppings for miles around East Liverpool. He maintained a boat that was moored on the Ohio River and carried a mural advertising his products. One hot August day he even distributed hand fans to Temperance marchers that had an plug for his whiskey printed on the back. For his  patrons he provided a decorated cup that featured a quart of Diamond Club Rye being enjoyed by banker and farmer alike.

Meredith’s knack for publicity was matched by the themes of his advertising. His newspaper ads and container labels insisted that the whiskey was “pure,” once again exhibiting his merchandising savvy. The hottest consumer issue of the decade was the safety of merchandised food and drink products. The Pure Food and Drug Act would be enacted a several years later and “purity” had the same draw as “all natural” does today. Diamond Club’s purity, Meredith announced, made it “the safest whiskey on earth” for medical purposes. He claimed that one “nip” was worth 10 doses of medicine and boasted that his liquor had been “officially recognized” by the medical profession. How and where, he did not elaborate.

By stressing his whiskey’s therapeutic rather than its lubricating qualities Meredith also was attempting to circumvent the burgeoning Temperance Movement. The business of selling “the safest whiskey on earth for medicinal use” expanded rapidly. Within a decade Meredith was one of North America’s largest whiskey distributors, serving a clientele, as he put it, “from Maine to California and Canada to the Gulf.”

This canny, self-promoting businessman also saw the customer appeal that bottling his whiskey in a whiteware china jug might have. He talked his former employers at KT&K into shaping a distinctive container, one with a graceful tapering body, a serpent handle, a fancy over-glaze label and plenty of gold trimming. On April 4, 1891, the East Liverpool Daily Crisis newspaper ran an ad stating: “The G.W. Meredith Co. is offering its Diamond Club Pure Rye Whiskey in china jugs that will come in three sizes.” The KT&K whiskey jug was launched -- every one of the bearing the message: “Expressly for Medicinal Purposes.”

Before long the white jug with the serpent handle had become an important product of the pottery. Other whiskey distillers and distributors saw that the containers were attractive and commissioned KT&K to apply their labels. Nonetheless, George Meredith remained KT&K’s best customer. In addition to the three sizes of Diamond Club available -- quart, pint and half-pint -- he ordered a non-pouring one & one-half inch advertising replica that could be used as a watch fob. He also approved a totally different design for an “1880” Meredith Rye.

As Meredith grew in wealth and prestige, he branched out in East Liverpool, organizing and becoming principal stockholder in the Crockery City Brewing & Ice Company. He also helped found the Colonial Company, a pottery with six kilns. But the town he had adopted as his own ultimately disappointed him. In 1907 the Temperance marchers had their way when East Liverpool by local option voted itself dry.

Meredith retaliated by eliminating the town name from his bottles and jugs. One such jug is shown here. In 1908 he moved his operations to Pittsburgh. After National Prohibition wiped out his liquor business there in 1920, he migrated to Atlantic City, N.J., where he is said to have made another fortune in real estate. He also bottled a soft drink called “Whistle,” an orange-flavored beverage that had been invented in St. Louis just as Prohibition began. He died in Atlantic City in 1924 at the age of 74.

George Meredith’s legacy, however, remains with us in the ceramic jugs and other advertising items he generated and left behind, some of which are shown here. His was a true “rags to riches” story that deserves retelling at least as long as the containers and artifacts he commissioned are collected. And that should be a long time.

James “Jimmie” Durkin: Spokane’s Legendary Liquor Tycoon

Foreword:  From time to time this blog will include a post about a pre-Prohibition whiskey man that is drawn from another source. I have long wanted to do a piece on Jimmie Durkin, known to me through his many whiskey jugs. Research soon disclosed that his life and career had been captured by other writers as well or better than I could do it. Thus I am reprinting here an essay written by Peter Blecha and made possible by the Washington State Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation. It is dated June 2009.

Born to Irish parents in Wasall, England, young Jimmie Durkin and his family (including 13 siblings) arrived in America as immigrants in 1868. After briefly settling in Decatur, Illinois, and then in Liberty, Missouri, the daredevil 9 year old ran away from home, and soon wound up in Brooklyn, New York, where he lived with an uncle and raised funds by selling the The Brooklyn Eagle newspaper. By 1872 he was working in a bar. Eventually Durkin moved on to learning the wholesale liquor business in Perham, Minnesota, where on August 8, 1882, he married Margaret Daily (and they went on to have three sons and two daughters.

James "Jimmie" Durkin gained notoriety in the Inland Empire of Eastern Washington as Spokane's legendary liquor tycoon. Wild tales abound regarding his outlandish exploits and stunts, but beyond becoming one of the town's most successful businessmen and an early millionaire, Durkin earned a well-deserved reputation as a thinking man. Indeed, locals and area newspapers routinely referred to the one-time gubernatorial candidate as no less than "Spokane's Main Avenue philosopher."

A Daredevil "Irishman"

Born to Irish parents in Wasall, England, young Jimmie Durkin and his family (including 13 siblings) arrived in America as immigrants in 1868. After briefly settling in Decatur, Illinois, and then in Liberty, Missouri, the daredevil 9 year old ran away from home, and soon wound up in Brooklyn, New York, where he lived with an uncle and raised funds by selling the The Brooklyn Eagle newspaper. By 1872 he was working in a bar. Eventually Durkin moved on to learning the wholesale liquor business in Perham, Minnesota, where on August 8, 1882, he married Margaret Daily (and they went on to have three sons and two daughters).

Years passed and in 1886 Durkin headed out west to Washington Territory. He first arrived in Colville, a bustling little town that was experiencing a boom due to the silver rush at Stevens County's Old Dominion Mine. Though the hamlet already boasted nine active saloons, Durkin couldn't find a job. He poked around a bit and realized that each of those bars was unwisely overpaying wagon-train companies for freight deliveries from Spokane. After some quick calculations he realized that by shipping booze in by the barrel (instead of the jug), he could cuts costs by 50 percent. And thus, with the $2,500 he'd arrived with, Durkin opened Colville's 10th liquor outpost -- and within a few years his nest-egg had grown into a small fortune totaling $65,000.

Durkin's Bar

At some point his young family apparently rejoined him, but times became harder. The first disruption came on August 4th with the Great Fire of 1889, which saw Spokane nearly destroyed after a Railroad Avenue saloon's kitchen erupted into flames. Then there was the economic Panic of 1893, which frightened everybody and hurt most businesses. Meanwhile, a new mining boom broke out in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, with Spokane becoming a great beneficiary of all that nearby activity. The draw of the big city attracted Durkin and in the spring of 1897 he relocated there.

Situated in a downtown storefront on the northwest corner of Sprague Avenue and Mill Street (today's Wall Street), Durkin's Bar began retailing liquor, and his adjacent bar served fine alcoholic beverages, including Dewar's Scotch, Seagram's Canadian Whiskey, Old Crow and Hermitage brand Kentucky whiskies, Spanish sherries, and Ireland's beloved Bass Ale and Guinness Stout, along with quality cigars. Under the supervision of his employee -- a dignified white-haired gentleman called The Colonel -- drunks and their boisterous language were not tolerated and bartenders were forbidden to imbibe while on duty. So Durkin's Bar not only offered better-priced drinks to its clientele, it also earned a reputation as a relatively respectable joint.

Jimmie Durkin Rocks!

But Durkin had a plan for bypassing the competition represented by Spokane's other 120 saloons -- and it amounted to an unceasing advertising blitz. His most famous brainstorm occurred while he was riding a stagecoach into Spokane. Along the way Durkin had noticed plenty of large boulders lining the route, and he soon had a local Swedish sign-painter applying a "Jimmie Durkin's Fine Wines and Liquor" sign on nearly every stone, tree, ledge, or other bare surface around. That commercial graffiti reportedly annoyed some locals and the tale is told about the day that a miner swaggered into the bar, dropped a chunk of granite on Durkin's desk and said "See anything peculiar about that rock, Jimmy?" Durkin replied, "No. I can't say that I do." "Well," came the stranger's retort, that's because "I found that rock 4,000 feet below the surface and it's the only one in this part of the country without your name on it!" (Federal Writers' Project).

If mildly controversial, those painted advertisements merely proved to be Durkin's opening act of audacious promotion. Among the many popular tales surrounding Durkin and his outlandishly fun-loving ways is the one regarding housecats. Asked by a pal why he invested so much capital in his advertising campaigns, he responded: "It is the very life of trade. I will wager I can place an advertisement in The Spokesman-Review offering to buy cats, and by nightfall I will have a basement full." Once that bet was accepted, Durkin promptly placed his "cats wanted" ad and when his buddy dropped by the following evening he was astounded to see the power of advertising in action: Durkin was suddenly the proud owner of a teeming menagerie of scores and scores of cats that the public had delivered.

Additional means of promoting his enterprises -- eventually Durkin had three shops (at 702 Sprague Avenue, 121 Howard Street, and 415 W Main Avenue) -- included offering his customers a daily free lunch and entertaining them with several cages of singing canaries. Beyond that he took to retailing wines and whiskies in custom-made stoneware jugs of various sizes and shapes -- each bearing the logo and street addresses of his firms. Among the most notable of these units were the large dark-brown glazed "drum top" jug, and an oddly shaped brown-glass "megaphone" bottle. Though considered worthies by antique collectors for many decades now, even back in the day, old Durkin had a prescient quip about the containers: "Durkin's bottles are good when they are full, that's more than you can say for the fella that gets full emptying them" (Kalez).

Temperance and a Good Temper

Well before the prohibition of alcohol sales in Washington became law on December 31, 1915 -- five years before Prohibition went into effect nationally between 1920 and 1933 -- a temperance movement had been simmering among moralistic activists across the land. But along the way, Durkin faced such issues with his typical forthrightness and good humor.

One celebrated example: Around June 1907, the good Reverend E. H. Braden -- pastor of a local Baptist Church (probably the Calvary Baptist Church at 426 E 3rd Avenue) -- took offence at Durkin's window display, which at the time featured a flock of stuffed crows intended to promote Old Crow Whiskey. When an area newspaper noted Braden's fulminations from the pulpit about how such advertising failed to depict the evil downside of liquor trafficking -- and that he'd stated a desire to have a chance to mount his own display at Durkin's -- the booze magnate slyly took him up on the idea. Durkin even graciously told him that "you can use all of my windows for any liquor displays you want. You can use anything you want, advertise anything you want, and I will not interfere. Also I will pay for everything. You can depend on me: I'm a man of my word" (Kalez).

Braden -- who was ably assisted by John Matthiesen (the advertising manager for Spokane's stationery shop, the John W. Graham Company) -- proceeded to mount an ambitious new eight-window tableau at Durkin's. The displays were certainly eye-catching, some might say a bit morbid and depressing. They included a mock-up of the "dream home" of a happy newlywed couple that included a full-sized piano and other genteel furnishings. The adjacent window hammered its anti-alcohol theme home with another view of that household, this time showing the bride, along with shabbily dressed kids, sweating over a laundry washboard. The message of alcohol's ability to destroy lives and dreams was powerful, but Durkin's standing in the community was resilient and some locals would forever after jokingly refer to their washboards as "Durkin's pianos."

The new displays drew considerable attention over the weeks, enough to make The Spokesman-Review scoff, calling the incident a "gigantic publicity stunt," which it certainly was. But that was Durkin's genius -- and business at Durkin's Bar increased dramatically. Enjoying the media coverage, and apparently all caught up in the hoopla, Durkin even went so far as to run as a Democratic candidate for governor in the 1908 election. He received 4,398 votes, but lost during the primary.

Meanwhile, Reverend Braden famously conceded that at the very least, "Jimmie Durkin is a man of his word." And though Durkin would proudly use that phrase as his motto ever after, the wily businessman always managed to get in the last word: By July 1907 he was placing display ads in newspapers that stated: "Visiting Baptists Are Invited to Inspect the Only Liquor Store in America Whose Windows Were Decorated by a Baptist Minister."

The other six Baptist-designed windows contained a variety of displays generally featuring "pictures of ragged women abandoned by hard-drinking men and with statistics about the ill-effects of liquor. One window contained a pile of sad, worn-out shoes, next to a gleaming pair of patent-leather shoes with gaiters, labeled, 'The shoes of the saloon-keeper'" (Kershner). However, even after Braden and Matthiesen's display was eventually replaced, Durkin reportedly respected its main message enough to place a sympathetic sign of his own in the bar: "If your kids need shoes, don't buy booze" (Biegler).

Prohibition Era

Although Prohibition directly threatened Durkin's business interests, he reacted calmly and resolved to make the best of the situation. On July 31, 1915, he told The Spokesman-Review: "We finish here now. Some day, it is my personal opinion, there will be a reversal of the prohibition policy. In any case, I and my organization will give the law the strictest obedience."

Durkin faced the coming shift in legal status by informing his suppliers back east that he would be ordering no new liquor, by wholesaling out his current stock to various buyers, and by closing down two storefronts. The third business (at 415 W Main) was sold to a duo who opened a men's card-room and billiard hall called Stewart and Ulrich -- a partnership that later broke up. Durkin resurfaced after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and recast the card-room as the Durkin and Ulrich Saloon.

"The Main Avenue Philosopher"

Durkin was a famously outspoken individualist and life-long Democrat in a city not noted for progressive politics. He spent most days holding court at his small wooden desk, doling out witty opinions on many topics. During the 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial" over teaching the theory of evolution in schools, he fired off a congratulatory telegram to the beleaguered defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, saluting his commitment to "freedom of thought and education." Durkin himself reflected a remarkably open mind for his times. Raised within the Catholic faith, he eventually came to publicly espouse an atheistic philosophy.

Durkin became less active over time, although he did once make a three-month trip to his ancestral home of Ireland (and England and Scotland). As comfortable millionaires, he (with a new set of solid-gold dentures) and his wife, Margaret, (and those canaries) were quite happy in their beautiful 1910 Craftsman-styled home located in the Cliff/Cannon neighborhood of Spokane’s South Hill at 930 S Lincoln Street. Interestingly, on July 10, 2006, the "Jimmie and Margaret Durkin House" (and its circa 1915 garage addition) were designated as historic landmarks with the City-County of Spokane Historic Preservation Office due to their being "excellent examples of the American Arts & Crafts tradition as expressed in the Craftsman style. The house was designed by the Ballard Plannary Company, a prominent Spokane architectural firm" (historicspokane.org).

Last Words

Durkin fell ill and on July 8, 1934, the remarkable Spokane character passed away at Sacred Heart Hospital (101 W 8th Avenue). He was buried on July 11 at the Greenwood Cemetery (211 N Government Way). But Jimmie Durkin once again got in the final word. Two deathbed quotes have been attributed to him. When asked if he wished to renounce atheism in favor of the Catholic faith of his youth, he stated: "As I live, so I die, for any man who does otherwise is not a man" (Kershner). The second was the one he arranged to have engraved as the epigraph on his headstone: Jimmie Durkin / Born 1859 Died 1934 / The minister said, "A man of his word."

In 1935 The Spokesman-Review looked back, noting that: "Jimmie Durkin is dead but everybody who knew the old man has tales to tell of his individualism. He belonged to the vanishing race of individualists, men who developed in original molds and not in the machine standardization of today. He was an Irishman who dared to be himself."

Charles Rebstock: Gifted in Business and Philathropy

Charles Rebstock was one of the Midwest’s most successful whiskey merchants, with customers in a multitude of states. During his career he successfully merchandised several brands with interesting trade cards and ads, while pursuing philanthropic causes that aided many worthy causes.

When Rebstock was born in Cincinnati in 1846 his father was engaged in the beer business. About 1859 the elder Rebstock took over the Park Brewing Company of Cincinnati. For reasons unknown two years later he sold out and moved the family to St. Louis. There Charles completed his education and began his working career.

Intervening years are lost in time until 1870 when Rebstock, now 24, founded a whiskey wholesale organization and began to sell his products in both in bulk and in bottles. As was characteristic with his mode of operating, he collaborated with a Kentuckian named D. L. Moore to build a distillery on the Shawnee River near Burgin KY. Eventually they formed a company called Moore and Rebstock Distillers. The products of this facility gave Charles an assured supply of whiskey for his several brands.

Rebstock’s flagship label was “Stonewall,” which he registered with the federal government in 1874. His ads said of this whiskey: “It makes people happy and wealthy.” It was also touted as “America’s Finest Whiskey” and “Perfection.” Other Rebstock brands were “Golden Horn” and “Deer Lane,” both registered in 1879, and “Snow Hill” and “Old Chancellor Rye,” left unregistered.

Rebstock’s first location was 207-209 S. Second St. in St. Louis. In 1879 he moved to 200 S. Main where he continued in business through 1913. In addition to his Kentucky investments, he joined with a San Franciscan named Jacob Endres to establish a wholesale liquor and beer business at 322-326 Sansom St. in that California city. An ad from that organization cites Stonewall Whiskey and St. Louis Beer.

He merchandised his whiskey through a series of trade cards -- some of them shown here -- that are both amusing and puzzling. One shows a trainload of Stonewall Whiskey coming to town; another, a small girl handing a flower to a puzzled owl. Particularly opaque is one showing two young women examining the head of a man holding a fishing net and contemplating a beached and presumably wrecked fishing boat. 

That image may seem less strange when we understand that Rebstock in 1880 had commissioned a Mississippi steamboat be built in St. Louis with his name attached. This packet was to carry his goods and salesmen to the lower Mississippi and its tributaries.  The venture apparently proved unprofitable and three years later he sold the boat. It later burned and was junked. My guess is the figure represented is Rebstock himself, having his head examined about his venture into steamships.

After the death  of his 36-year old wife, Pauline, and having no children, Rebstock  took the opportunity to travel.  By 1903, he is accounted to have made two prolonged voyages around the world, spending long periods in several countries and taking the opportunity to hawk his whiskey in Europe, Asia,  and Africa, including South Africa.   A contemporary biographer described him as:  “Urbane and affable in his ways and manners,  upright and honest in all his dealings and without any prejudices...”

In 1914, after 24 profitable years on Main Sreet in St. Louis, Rebstock moved to 200 S. First Street and eventually shut down as Prohibition approached.  Now 74 years old and apparently without immediate heirs, this wealthy whiskey man began to look for likely place to practice philanthropy. The Journal of the American Medication Assn. reported in 1922 that Rebstock had purchased the Wintersteiner Collection of 13,000 microscopic preparations of pathologic changes of the eye and contributed them to the St. Louis (Medical) University. The collection was said to be the most complete in Europe and was to be used for graduate instruction in opthamology.

Four years later Rebstock, with no appointment, presented himself in the office of the Chancellor of Washington University of St. Louis, asking for an interview. Reluctantly ushered in by a secretary, he announced that his name was Charles Rebstock, distiller, and that he had one million dollars he wished to give the university for the construction of a new building with no specification of purpose other than it have his name on it. In 1926 a million was a huge sum of money.


During a walk through the campus with the Chancellor, Charles saw that the zoology and botany departments were poorly housed and decided that they deserved a new building that he would fund. Front entrance shown here, the Charles Rebstock Building still is home to these scientific departments and a professorship also is maintained in his name. After his death in 1928, a dozen charities, including three hospitals and several organizations that serve the blind, received bequests from his estate.

In life Charles Rebstock had an extraordinary gift for business and merchandising his several brands of whiskey. In death, as in life, he proved to be a generous benefactor of humanitarian and educational causes. His name and legacy will be preserved in St. Louis for a long, long time.

Michael Stanton Supplied a Drinking Man’s Town

For almost 40 years Michael Stanton was a successful liquor merchant in a drinking man’s town -- Portsmouth, Ohio. Liquor had aided Portmouth’s growth along the Ohio River, whether it was the ration given to its workers on the Cleveland and Erie Canal or the hundreds of barrels of whiskey that reached the town via the canal. Most of the alcohol was loaded on boats but a significant amount was consumed in the dozens of saloons that lined Portsmouth streets. 

Shown above in maturity, Stanton was born in Ireland in 1842 and came to the United States with his mother in 1846. His father had come the previous year. They settled in Junior Furnace, Ohio, a small town in Scioto County not far from Portsmouth. There Michael received his education.  Coming of age just as the Civil War was starting, in 1862 he joined the Union Army as a messenger and was part of a cohort headed by Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock that fought up and down the Shenandoah Valley. At the war’s end he joined the largely ceremonial Veteran’s Corp headed by Hancock, later a Democratic Party candidate for President.

Returning to Ohio, Stanton’s early working years were spent toiling in local ore and coal mines and crewing on Ohio River boats. In 1870 he went to work in the liquor trade in Portsmouth, employed by G. W. Brown & Co. By the following year he had formed a partnership with James T. Bagby. They bought an established wholesale liquor house and operated it under their names. Eighteen months later Bagby departed and the firm became Stanton’s.

He became recognized as a leading citizen and businessman of Portmouth. He was a principal stockholder in the Portsmouth Wagon Stock Company. With partners he also was involved in land development in Southern Ohio. Moreover, in 1875 Stanton was elected to the Portsmouth City Council and served there with distinction. About the same time he married Mary Livingston, a native of Pennsylvania. They would have seven children, two of whom died in infancy.

Stanton would be remembered for his civic work, including being the chairman of the Finance Committee of the Council when street paving was accomplished. In 1893, according to his obituary, he played a major role in the community that was reeling from a recession, including darkened industries and major unemployment. Stanton, in effort to spur recovery, used his own credit among other resources to raise the money for municipal works projects. This and other efforts by Stanton, the Portsmouth Times asserted, assisted hundreds of the "needy and unfortunate."

His company name changed again when Michael found a new partner in S.P. (Simon) Balmert, a German immigrant. Together they created Stanton & Balmert, a wholesale liquor distribution business located at 161 and 163 West Front Street. With some 55 saloons in the vicinity of Portsmouth, a town of about 5,000, they found a ready customer base. Their brands included "Spring Lane Rye" and "Stanton’s Pure Rye and Whiskey." A large ceramic jug with the partners' names indicates whiskey for wholesale purchase

The partners quickly grew sales to more than $100,000 annually and became Portmouth’s largest liquor dealers. A clear flask from Stanton & Balmert displays prominently the company’s “S-B” monogram. The firm used the same symbol on shot glasses it issued, one for its 10-year-old sour mash whiskey and a second for its 10-year-old rye. A third, shown here, was an unusual green etched variant.

After operating successfully for 31 years, the company was brought short by Temperance forces. In 1908 legislation was passed in Ohio at the behest of the Anti-Saloon League that proved effective in harassing the drinking public. Called the Rose Law it established the right of “local option,” meaning that individual communities could ban drinking establishments. Portsmouth promptly did. That same year Balmert left to join another liquor establishment. Stanton went on alone as the M. Stanton Company, selling whiskey to nearby communities that remained “wet.”

About the same time Stanton was severely injured in a railroad accident that, according to his Times obituary, left him invalided for some months. After a period of slow decline and final weeks in a hospital he died in May 1909. The newspaper obituary said that Stanton was, "...The staunchest and most masterful advocate Portsmouth ever had...." It added that he was "a man to be admired and loved."

By 1911, it had become apparent to voters in Scioto County that simply abolishing saloons was not an effective solution to anything. Residents repealed the ban and made the swinging doors legal again. The firm Stanton founded was there to supply the whiskey. This victory was offset in 1913 by the Great Ohio Flood. Portsmouth’s Front Street, where the business was located, was inundated in nine feet of water, as shown here in a contemporary photo. Many people died and whole businesses were destroyed. Stanton’s company was among them and subsequently disappeared forever from city directories.

Despite the flood, Portsmouth continued to be a drinking man’s town. When statewide Prohibition was proclaimed in 1916, Portsmouth citizens formally marked the occasion by erecting a tombstone in the city square. Shown above, the monument declared: “In memory of a good town...Portsmouth died Sunday.” Several sprays of flowers were put a the foot of the tombstone, as well as beer bottles on its base and black crepe at its top. My hunch is that, had he lived, Michael Stanton might have been among its sponsors.