Lemp Brewery?

You mean like this one?



I will dig up my history on the LEMP facility. I have 14 individually numbered cars for this series. The cars ran from St. Louis, down to Dallas, and did make it to San Antonio a time or two. They are the most handsome beer cars I've seen.

Manny

 

The brewery in the picture above was located at 1920 Shenandoah Ave, off Lemp St, and Russell, I-55. This located just south of the I-55/I-44 interchange, and the I-44/I-64 interchange which there is a huge rail yard at. I don't know whose yard that is but if that is the Frisco's, then I'm sure it was serviced by them.

 

The 1920 Shenandoah Avenue location was the Falstaff Brewery. I am not sure what brand it produced prior to its being used for Falstaff. Falstaff had been Lemp's brand, but Joseph Griesedieck bought it from Lemp near the time of Prohibition.

The final Lemp Brewery is around 3500 South Broadway in St. Louis and is a large complex. I believe the photo in Manny's post #2 actually shows the South Broadway plant because the silos look familiar. Prohibition caused the brewery to close.

Lemp had its own railway (the name escapes me) prior to 1918 and Prohibition. In this respect, it resembled Anheuser-Busch who had the Manufacturers' Railway. The Lemp railway did street running on nearby Potomac and Broadway, among others.

Since MRS belonged to "the competition," I am not sure Lemp used it, though it was close enough they could have. Posts elsewhere on the forum indicate the closest and most likely interchange was with St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern. This was part of the MP lines and continues as part of UP.

George Nelson

 

"Western Cable Railway" serving the Lemp Brewery on South Broadway does sound correct. My friend can verify that. It contains quite a network of rail lines and would make a maddeningly challenging switching layout. If I recall my friend correctly, the "Cable" really did mean cable power, just like San Francisco cable cars.

1920 Shenandoah certainly had no rail service in the late 1960's into the early 1970's when it closed. High costs due to all supplies being trucked in doubtlessly contributed to the decision to close.

TRRA carried a lot of beer cars to Lindenwood on the Frisco (and successors) from A-B up until a few months ago; they certainly would have done the same from Lemp in the 1890-1918 era.

George Nelson

 

Outbound beer shipments by rail from St. Louis in the MRS cars ended in early 2011 in favor of trucks with the closure of MRS.
See http://www.frisco.org/shipit/index.php?threads/mrs-rip.4424/#post-30525
First posting in that thread was 04/05/2011. For weeks prior to that, strings of empty cars went east with fewer loads going west. Post-BNSF photos of cars are attached to that thread.

Shame on me, but I have no first-hand knowledge what reporting marks may have been used prior to the BN-ATSF merger. I do recall seeing "boxcar-red" cars being loaded in Spring of 1976. They probably carried SLRX phasing to MRS marks from 1976 through 1996. Some time after 1976, MRS painted cars white with a red stripe along the bottom. The railroad picture websites show examples of all of these cars.

I really do not know the means by which the beer cars got to Lindenwood except talk with a TRRA engineer who remarked "Beer is really heavy," and my seeing TRRA power on the rail line east of Lindenwood. It is possible MRS brought interchange cars to their yard near Chouteau and TRRA took them from there. Inbound grain shipments are still by rail and the green locomotives are still around, though re-lettered.

George Nelson

 

Falstaff manufacturing locations had many incarnations.

Prior to "the Crime of 1918" (aka "Prohibition"), it was a Lemp Brewing Company brand and produced at the sprawling, still-existing, 3500 South Broadway location. In a reaction to imminent Prohibition, as well as to personal, internal business reverses, Lemp sold the brand to Joseph Griesedieck Brewing Company around 1920 (1918 to 1921).

Griesedieck had a brewing plant in North St. Louis. At this writing, I am not sure exactly where it was. I suspect the production location for Falstaff moved to that location when Prohibition ended in 1933.

Finally, I believe Griesedieck also had a plant at 1920 Shenandoah (Gravois and Shenandoah) in near South St. Louis. This was where the beer was being made when I joined the industry and we met their people at professional society meetings in 1967. The 1920 Shenandoah Avenue location had no rail service. This made a colleague wonder about their viability due to costs resulting from shipping supplies and finished product by truck. It came as a shock they closed their Technical Center very soon after I joined the industry. Brewing continued there for several more years, but ended in the mid-1970s.

George Nelson

 

Falstaff built a very fine office building across Highway 40 (I-64) from Forest Park. I believe this was in the 1950's to early 1960's. It was close to where the Science Center now stands. While it may have included laboratories and pilot-scale equipment, there was no production at that location.

Great minds, etc. I, too was trying to find the street for the picture location in the Wikipedia article that "Yardmaster" points to being at N 20th and Howard. Congratulations to him, for he beat me to it! Google street view does indeed show the old Falstaff smokestack just as the Wikipedia photo does. Anyone care for a bike-based "field survey" in warmer weather? Trailnet's July "Bike St. Louis Ride" reached Martin Luther King and 20th, about a mile south of there.

George

 

Nice post, Charlie.
All I have to say is that there is a lot of bricks in those grain towers .. and the buildings themselves!

 

Question for you St. Louis guys, when did Lemp become known more commonly as Falstaff? Also what is the Falstaff connection to Griesidick Brothers?

Thanks, Tom G.