Schlitz In Oshkosh

In an earlier post the subject of Oshkosh beer distribution and the Pabst brewing company was covered but many other out of town breweries set up shop in the city, chief among them was Schlitz. August Uihlein of the Schlitz Brewery was selling beer in Oshkosh as early as the 1880's and in 1891 the Uihlein Block was completed, which housed Schlitz Hall a magnificent drinking place. ( See, “More Oshkosh Buildings, Part Five.” May 28, 2015)

Something was afoot, in February of 1891, William Dichmann an Oshkosh business man purchased a lot on Division Street. Dichmann has purchased the lot at Washington and State St. some years earlier and in turn sold it to Mr. Uihlein so that the Uihlein Block could be built. In mid-year, 1891 came the announcement of the brewery's intention to build a storage house with a bottling facility and stable, this according to the Oshkosh Weekly Northwestern of July 8, 1891. The article stated that the structure was to 36 x 62 and was to be located on Division St., between the Milwaukee Road and Central Wisconsin Central tracks, the same lot acquired by Mr. Dichmann some months earlier. There was also published in that same edition a notice to contractors for sealed bids for the construction of the edifice, plans for which could be viewed and bids accepted at the office of William Waters, architect. The Oshkosh Times of October 29,1891 printed an article on the just completed Schlitz warehouse, describing it's modern attributes and praising it as “...quite an addition to the city's semi-public buildings.” Just what the building looked like is a bit of a mystery as there are no extant images of the place.

The building did appear on the 1903 Sanborn Map of Oshkosh, labeled as Louis Plate Beer Bottling and shows several structures, some of wood and some with a brick veneer but not much more than that. The Oshkosh Beer Blog of April 4, 2016 covers the Schlitz in Oshkosh subject more extensively and I commend those pages to you as a good and interesting read.