The Sweetwater Brewery, also known as the Green River Brewery, was built in 1900 in Green River, Wyoming

Green River, Wyoming

Green River is a city in and the county seat of Sweetwater County, Wyoming, United States, in the southwestern part of the state. The population was 11,808 at the 2000 census....

. The present structure is the surviving remnant of a three-building complex comprising an office/saloon, engine house, and the present brewery

Brewery

A brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made at home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company....

 building. It was the first brewery in Wyoming

Wyoming

Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...

, with operations dating to 1872 when Adam Braun began the business, the first of a series of ethnic German brewers. The brewery was further developed by Otto Rauch and Karl Spinner. The present structure was built by the fourth proprietor, Hugo Gaensslen, a Chicagoan

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 who decorated the building with turrets reminiscent of the Chicago Water Tower

Chicago Water Tower

The Chicago Water Tower is a contributing property in the Old Chicago Water Tower District landmark district. It is located at 806 North Michigan Avenue along the Magnificent Mile shopping district in the Near North Side community area of Chicago, Illinois...

.

The two story building is composed of rock-faced ashlar

Ashlar

Ashlar is prepared stone work of any type of stone. Masonry using such stones laid in parallel courses is known as ashlar masonry, whereas masonry using irregularly shaped stones is known as rubble masonry. Ashlar blocks are rectangular cuboid blocks that are masonry sculpted to have square edges...

 sandstone, mostly quarried 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away. The fanciful turrets feature mock-medieval features such as merlon

Merlon

In architecture, a merlon forms the solid part of an embattled parapet, sometimes pierced by embrasures. The space between two merlons is usually called a crenel, although those later designed and used for cannons were called embrasures.-Etymology:...

s and crenels. The largest tower is on the southwest corner and features a flagpole topped by a large ball.

Gaensslen concentrated on brewing, leasing the adjacent saloon to an operator. With the passage of the Volstead Act

Volstead Act

The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was the enabling legislation for the Eighteenth Amendment which established prohibition in the United States...

, brewing stopped and the company's name changed to the Sweetwater Beverage Company, making a non-alcoholic drink named "Green River" and a near-beer

Low-alcohol beer

Low-alcohol beer is beer with very low or no alcohol content...

called "Wyoming Beverage." The business di not prosper and failed with the death of Gaensslen in 1931, two years before the end of Prohibition.

IN 1936 the closed business was bought by a con man named Tom Flaherty, who made some poor beer and skipped town to Canada. Since that time, no beer has been made in the building, which has housed various commercial businesses.

External links

• Photographs of the Sweetwater Brewery at the National Park Service's NRHP database
• Sweetwater/Green River Brewery at the Wyoming State Preservation Office