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Breweries in Winfield
Subject: brewery
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 16:03:56 -0600
From: Bill Bottorff
To:
Lois Loucks
Lois, as I mentioned in our conversation today, the brewery owned and operated by Frank Manny is one of the mysteries of early Winfield. Ostensibly, the brewery closed when Winfield went dry in 1881/1882.
Mayor Troup's inaugural address on April 14, 1881, deals with the problems of city budget without revenue from the "joints"
Read more
The trial of Frank Manny for selling "ginger beer" was held in June 1881
Read more
We have no known pictures of the ice house or the brewery. Although Frank Manny was often reviled by the newspapers and the temperence people, he was an important person in the early development of the town. He undoubedtly helped J. P. Baden get into the ice and related fresh produce business, with the combination of them shipping iced produce by rail at least ten to twenty years earlier than the shipments from California documented in "East of Eden", the James Dean movie. We don't have any firm articles or reverences of the relationship between Baden and Manny, it is mostly just my intuition. I think somewhere it is documented that Baden bought an ice house from Manny.
The brewery was adjacent to the ice house that Frank Manny built on Timber (or Dutch) Creek. It was at about the north west corner of what is now 3rd Avenue and Harter Street. The first map is in 1884.
In 1893 when city constable Hugh Siverd was killed by bootleggers, the paper notes that the illegal booze was being delivered to "Frank Manny's Joint".
We don't know if this was still at the location of the brewery, but the fire map for 1893 shows that property as Frank Manny's Brewery, with a small "formerly" above.
There was also an incident involving a riot of Southwestern College students after one of their number was thrown out of a "joint". I think it was in the 1890's, but may have been after the turn of the centuty. It seems to me that it was written up in one of the Winfield History books. Anybody remember?
There was also supposed to be a dislillery, but I don't know where. Frank Manny also had an orchard, which I am told is necessary if one is to manufacture distilled beverages.
Two lists of general topics from the early times of Winfield are:
Collected Topics from History of Cowley County CD
and
Articles on Various Subjects from the Old Cowley County Newspapers and Interviews With Oldtimers
which contains a document with a large selection of Frank Manny related news articles
Manny Family
The above link was not included in the original mailing. The referenced document covers a lot of incidents including the Jay Page murder trial
Mary Ann Wortman also has a miscellaneous section:
General Topics
and of course her home page
As you will see, there are lots of other mysteries about early Winfieldand Cowley county.
Enough to keep anyone interested busy for years.
--
Bill Bottorff
Subject: Re: brewery
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 17:39:50 -0600
From: "Michael Smith"
Bill,
There was a downtown riot in 1900 - 01, and a beer joint was flattened. A slight reference to it is in the book "Prohibition in Kansas," which is in the Winfield library. Also an account in the Topeka paper at that time.When I subsantiate the facts I will include it in the next screenplay.
We are coming right along with "Good Men Do" and it is a big job. Basically we will create a downtown theatre and present it on May 3 and 4.
Mike
Subject: RE: brewery
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 07:09:48 -0500
From: "Davis, Robert"
Dear Friends,
For those of you not old enough to remember, Winfield had quite a number of breweries, wineries, and distilleries from the 1880s through the 1940s. Mostly all located in attics and basements. My Dad (and Brother Jim's), Paul Davis made a fairly good wine in the attic. Our Great Aunt used to tell of seeing the geese wandering around the farmyard one morning, so drunk that their heads were dragging the ground. Investigation found that they had been drinking from a creek behind the house that was down-stream from a bootlegger's still. I believe that research will reveal that many healthy contributions to church and the infamous Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) were made by the bootleggers. This was after Prohibition was repealed, and the bootleggers wanted to keep the state legally dry. With all of the alcohol flowing through Cowley County, in them days, the county must have been a very disinfected place.
Most Sincerely,
Bob Davis
Subject: HAHN RAID & SC
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 12:37:46 -0600
From: "Jerry Wallace"
Bill, I think you are referring to an incident involving a ERNEST HAHN, purportedly a ministerial student at Southwestern College, that took place in Winfield in February 1899. The story goes that Hahn was outraged at seeing a whiskey barrel on the platform of the RR station. With an axe, Hahn smashed it open. He then marched into a saloon and proceeded to order the proprietors of the establishment--two brothers--to close at once. Needless to say, Hahn's action was not well received by the owners and
patrons. They expressed their displeasure by hitting him over the head with a billiard cue. Hahn fled. That night some of his fellow ministerial students, seeking revenge, broke several windows in the saloon. The next morning about 500 persons, including a number of students, gathered at the First Baptist Church to plan a raid on the saloon. The owners defended themselves with shotguns, but were eventually overwhelm and fled. In the fray, two women were wounded. The raiders wrecked the saloon. The violence succeeded in intimidating the owners of Winfield's two other saloons; they closed their doors immediately.
This account is taken from Don W. Holter's FIRE ON THE PRAIRIE: METHODISM IN THE HISTORY OF KANSAS (1969), pp. 121-22. Sally Wilcox, drawing on Holt, repeats it in WINFIELD AND THE WALNUT VALLEY (1975), p. 41. The source of this story, which is cited by Holt, was an article by Herbert Asbury, "Marching As to War," THE STORY OF CARRY NATION, series of articles in OUTLOOK AND INDEPENDENT, August 21, 1929, p. 661. (Asbury was a descendant of the Rev. Francis Asbury, the first Methodist bishop ordained in America.) In the same year, Asbury compiled and published the articles as a biography, CARRY NATION, a copy of which can be found at the WPL in the Kansas Collection. Some years later, in 1950, Asbury wrote another book on prohibition entitled, THE GREAT ILLUSION. It is an excellent, first rate account of prohibition. Unfortunately, there are no copies available locally.
As for the Hahn story, I have problems with it.
1. Asbury in his account of the Hahn matter does not cite a source. Thus we do not know where he got his information.
2. More troubling, however, I have never been able to find any record of Hahn as a Southwestern student. His name does not appear in any of the student list of the day (I checked all departments, not just the college).
3. I have never seen Hahn's name cited in any primary information source, contemporary or close by, pertaining to the college and Winfield prohibition effort. The following, which is taken from the "Collegian" of June 1908, p.13, will be of interest:
April 21, 1908. Prohibition. "John Marshall, the man who did so much to clean up Winfield and routed the saloons, gave us a visit April twenty-first, and made an address on American ideals in general and Kansas in particular. Mr. Marshall and C. W. Trickett are solely responsible for driving out the saloon in the northern part of the state."
Asbury's account of the Hahn raid needs to be looked into and documented. One obvious source is the COURIER. The Cowley County Historical Society may also have documentation pertaining to the Hahn incident.
If anyone knows more about this matter, please let me know. I would be grateful.
Jerry Wallace
Historian/Archivist
Southwestern College
