American Breweriana Journal Nov./Dec. 2024
Brewing in Scranton, Pennsylvania
By Rich Wagner
Scranton emerged as Pennsylvania’s third largest city, in no small part because of its location in the northern coal fields where the Delaware and Hudson Canal and later railroad, provided a conduit to fuel the industry and commerce of New York City. Of course, this involved quite a bit of labor, digging not only coal but the canals and supplying labor to the local industries that sprang up, providing brewers with a thirsty demographic. There were nearly a dozen breweries that didn’t last more than a couple of years from the 1860s-80s. This article examines Scranton’s most successful pre-prohibition breweries.
The Robinson Family Breweries
The Robinson family had been brewers for generations but by the mid-nineteenth century the region that would become a country known as Germany was in turmoil to replace monarchs with a national constitution and unite Germanic provinces. Philip Robinson, Sr. and his oldest son Jacob ended up on the wrong side of one such revolution and both spent two years in prison for treason against the sovereign. As soon as he was released, Jacob went to America and landed in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Philip, Sr., got out of jail with his fortune intact and along with his family joined Jacob soon thereafter.
Jacob started a 500-bbl. brewery and bottling establishment behind his house. When the rest of his family arrived, they all became involved with his Scranton City Brewery. In 1869, Jacob moved to New York and his father and brother managed the brewery as Philip Robinson B.C.
Sadly, three Robinsons died in as many years: Jacob in 1877, Philip Sr. in 1878 and Philip, Jr. in 1879. Philip, Jr. had been involved in building a new plant and never got to see its completion. And it is interesting that both breweries took the names of and were managed by the widows and their families.
Mina Robinson B.C.
01 PHOTO CAPTION Scranton Wochenblatt May 6, 1869
02 PHOTO CAPTION The Western Brewer July 1886
Philip Robinson’s brewery is listed in the U.S. Non-Resident Census of 1870 as being capitalized with $9,500. Five hands were employed, five months per year with wages totaling $3,900. The plant was powered by a 10-h.p. steam engine. Annual production of beer was valued at $60,000. Underground vaults extended far beyond the brewery property. As previously noted, Philip Robinson, Sr. and two of his sons died before their new brewery went on stream in 1879. Philip, Jr.’s widow, Wilhelmina ‘Mina’ managed the business and her brother Leopold Schimpff managed the brewery. In October 1881 the brewery burned down. Workmen sleeping on the premises escaped by jumping out of windows and damage was estimated to be $35,000. The following year it was replaced by a 50,000-bbl. brewery with a 125-bbl. kettle and a 40-ton ice machine. A new ice house with a 25-ton machine was added in 1886. It became a branch of the Pennsylvania Central B.C. in 1897. In 1901 PCBC closed the Scranton B.C. (Hand) branch and moved its operations there. PCBC closed the Mina Robinson branch in 1910 and leased the stock house to a company that converted it to a silk mill and the brew house to a soda company which adapted it to the manufacture of Birchola.
E. Robinson’s Sons’ B.C
03 PHOTO CAPTION The Western Brewer January 1895
05 PHOTO CAPTION Scranton Wochenblatt March 17, 1904
In 1869 Jacob Robinson purchased the Turtle Bay brewery and moved to New York City. In February 1871 his first brew was shipped to Robinson & Mentzel’s hotel in Scranton. He returned to Scranton in 1875 and set up a restaurant in the Weichel building. He built a brewery and sent his son William to Bavaria to learn the brewing trade. Jacob died in 1877 and the business was conducted by his widow, Elizabeth and her four sons: Louis (1846-82), August (1848-1911), William (1852-93) and Charles (1855-1916) as Elizabeth Robinson’s Sons’ B.C.
In 1895 Elizabeth retired, transferring her interests to surviving sons: Charles, as president and August as manager. The brewery became the primary branch of the Pennsylvania Central Brewing Co. (PCBC), a syndication of a dozen breweries in the region, five of which were located in Scranton. The brewery regularly expanded and made improvements: in 1898 and 1904 new tanks increased capacity; in 1902 grains drying equipment was installed which processed spent grains from all the branches for resale; in 1908 a 350-bbl. kettle was added to the brew house and in 1916 a new bottling house was built to handle bottling for all branches.
August died in July 1911 leaving Charles as the last surviving family member to run the plant. Charles died in March 1916. On the day of his funeral, all Scranton breweries closed at noon out of respect for his legacy as a brewer and community leader.
The brewery remained the cornerstone of the PCBC and came back after repeal for at least two years.
PHOTO 06 Undated ad.
Star Ale B.C./Scranton B.C.
Posten & Heller established a brewery in 1860. It went through four incarnations with different partners but was probably best known as Morton & Briggs. The U.S. Non-Resident Census of 1870 shows Morton & Rimrick with capital investment of $18,000, with the plant running on water power and two steam engines; 7-h.p and 5-h.p. The brewery employed six workers year-round with a payroll of $3,600 and produced 3,000-bbl. of ale valued at $27,000 and 500-bbl. of porter worth $4,500.
In 1874 the Scranton Tribune reported that the “steam ale brewery of Mr. Morton” was entirely destroyed by fire. The brewery was rebuilt and the business continued. Morton died in 1877. In 1884 Michael Hand and William Van Dyke, both of Utica, purchased the business then a property on the South Side and built a four-story frame and stone brewery and cellar. They quickly doubled its capacity to 50,000-bbl. Hand’s son-in-law James Croghan was also involved. The brewery installed grains drying equipment in 1894 to sell spent grain to local dairy farmers as cattle feed. India Pale Ale, porter, present use and stock ales were distributed locally and they had accounts throughout northeastern Pennsylvania. Scranton B.C. became a branch of PCBC in 1897. Michael Hand financed the construction of an ale brewery in Pawtucket, RI, capitalized with $450,000. He transferred $370,000 in stock to his son who left Scranton in 1898 to manage the new brewery. In 1901 Hand left the firm when PCBC closed the branch and moved operations to the Mina Robinson brewery.
PHOTO 07 Casey & Kelly Brewery. Lackawanna County Historical Society.
Casey & Kelly B.C.
Lawrence and Timothy Casey came to Scranton from Ireland in 1870 and worked for their uncle’s liquor business. Upon his retirement, the company became Casey Brothers which went on to be one of the largest wholesale liquor houses in the state. Two more brothers subsequently emigrated and joined them.
Patrick F. Tierney and two investors incorporated the Meadowbrook Ale Brewery along a creek by the same name in 1891. Tierney died and the following year it was purchased by the Casey brothers and another local liquor dealer, William Kelly. They incorporated as Casey & Kelly B.C. with William Kelly, president; P.J. Casey, secretary; A.J. Casey, treasurer. They brought the plant’s capacity to 25,000-bbl. by installing new equipment including a 150-h.p. steam engine. In 1894 they added a large wash house anticipating an increase in production.
With the addition of a 3-story, 50,000-bbl. lager beer brewery, Casey & Kelly’s Lager rolled out in May 1896. L.H. Zimmer was brewmaster. The event was marked with a huge parade and sales exceeded all expectations. This was despite the fact of reports that competitors had hired men to go around town, order the beer and condemn it. Casey & Kelly joined PCBC in 1897.
In 1903 A.J. Casey and William Kelly established Liberty Discount and Savings bank in Carbondale. Casey & Kelly spent $25,000 on improvements including new tanks in 1904. A new boiler house was added in 1906 and in 1913 the company built a grand office building and residence. The Caseys spent $1M and built the 11-story, 250-room Casey Hotel in 1911. The press featured multi-full-page coverage complete with interior views touting it as the most opulent venue of its kind in northeastern Pennsylvania and beyond.
PHOTO 08 Scranton Tribune March 15, 1897.
Lackawanna B.C.
George Brock had a hotel and bottling establishment that represented a wholesale liquor dealer in Philadelphia. Gus and Henry Muller had a brewery in Brewerytown, Philadelphia and in 1888 they engaged Brock as an agent for their beer in Luzerne and Lackawanna counties and began shipping carloads of beer to Scranton. There were plans for a brewery and Brock received a license for the Lackawanna B.C. which enabled customers to drink beer they purchased on the premises. He was taken to court for being a “brewer without a brewery,” the first such case in Pennsylvania, and his brewers license was revoked.
Herman Bartels, a wealthy brewer from Syracuse, was interested in establishing a brewery in northeastern, Pennsylvania. Together with Michael Hand, his two sons-in-laws and others incorporated the Lackawanna B.C. in 1895 and invested $200,000 to build a modern six-story, 100,000-bbl. plant. The brew house was equipped with a 200-bbl. kettle and up-to-date malt cleaning and milling machinery; was powered with a 75-h.p. engine, a dynamo to produce electricity and a 65-ton ice machine.
The company became a branch of PCBC in 1897. Hand’s son-in-law, E.J. Rutledge, was manager of the plant. Bartels sold the brewery to Hand a year later retaining his position as director. He then built the Bartels brewery in Edwardsville, a suburb of Wilkes-Barre as a corporation separate from his brewery in Syracuse.
The company was reorganized after repeal as Lackawanna Beer & Ale Corp. (1933-43)
PHOTO 09 Scranton Truth October 26, 1905.
Consumers/Anthracite Beer Co.
The term Consumers was applied to corporations where wholesale and retail merchants were stockholders in companies that produced their products. John P. Persch had formed the Consumers’ B.C. of Philadelphia in 1896 and the Pennsylvania Central B.C. in Scranton the following year. Consumers would be part of yet another of his combines. The investors had Beyer & Rautert of Chicago draw up plans for a 30,000-bbl. brewery. The company obtained a charter in January 1899. Michael Hand’s son-in-law Edward J. Rutledge was president and treasurer, Willliam H. Rutledge, secretary and general manager. Seeing slim prospects of competing with the “beer trust” Consumers was dissolved in October before exercising any corporate powers.
The Anthracite Beer Co. was incorporated in 1899 in Kingston, near Wilkes-Barre, by members of the Jordan and Healey families with capital of $20,000. In February 1900 it was reported they had secured a plot of ground in Scranton and had let contracts for construction of a new plant with the intention of moving there. In 1902 the Union B.C. of Newark, N.J. took the company to court for failing to pay for nearly 7,000-bbls. of beer which would suggest that they operated as a beer wholesaler. In one newspaper article the company was referred to as the Kingston Ale and Beer Co.
In 1899 the Anthracite Beer Co. moved to a 10,000-bbl. brewery in Scranton. It was a three-story frame structure. Thirty men were employed. Michael Hand’s son-in-law, J.J. Croghan was manager. During a flood in 1903 a thousand kegs were swept out of the yards and went downstream. The following year the brewery was destroyed by fire believed to be incendiary, amounting to $70,000 in damages that included recently installed machinery valued at $20,000. Insurance only covered $16,000. Foundations had been laid to double the capacity of the plant for the production of lager beer. Only the brick boiler house remained.
A year later the Anthracite Beer Co. organized by a different group of investors completed a modern 100,000-bbl. brewery, with 32” brick walls; 200-bbl. brewing kettle, two 40-ton refrigerating machines, and a dynamo to produce electricity. In 1906 a modern bottling department was added. P.J. Cummings was manager. Peter Mayer was brewmaster with 40 years-experience. In 1909 Persch and others made a second attempt to include Anthracite in a combination, this time by merging it with Keystone B.C. in Dunmore, but those efforts failed.
In 1910 they owed the Electric Malting Co. of Minneapolis $4,000. A receiver was appointed. In 1912 the company requested a receiver’s sale and J.P. Jordan purchased the brewery for $53,000. Two years later Anthracite built a modern 100-bbl. per day bottling house. The brewery came back after repeal (1934-37).
PHOTO 10 Standard brewery c. 1950s. Ernie Oest
PHOTO 11 Standard brewery. October 2006. Wagner.
Standard B.C.
The Standard B.C. was organized in 1904 with $100,000 of capital stock to build a 40,000-bbl. brewery. The company put their first beer on the market on July 1, 1905. The same year they doubled the plant’s capacity by expanding the stock house. When PCBC closed the Mina Robinson branch, Mina’s son, Otto J. Robinson, became president of Standard. He was director of South Side Bank, president of German Building Assn. and treasurer of Scranton Axle & Spring Co. and Richfield Copper Co. P.F. Cusick started as business manager then became secretary and treasurer. Cusick had taken over his family’s mortuary business at age 13 in 1894. He formed the Scranton Distributing Co. in 1905 and a year later established the Standard B.C. In 1907 he started the Standard Realty Co. and the First National Bank of Jessup.
Adam Spitzer was a local businessman who had the city’s largest bottling works and was vice-president. Fred Glatz was brewmaster and an additional director along with P.F.’s brother W.H. Cusick. Glatz had apprenticed at the Seipp brewery in Chicago, attended brewing school in Germany and worked at a large brewery in Berlin. He returned to the States and continued his career in the Midwest before becoming superintendent of PCBC. Five months later he joined Standard.
In 1910 new brew and stock houses doubled capacity to 250,000-bbl. The same year Standard’s “Nine Months Old” Tru-Age Beer won both Gold Medal and Grand Prize at the International Exposition of Progress in Food and Hygiene in Paris, France. Standard emerged from repeal as Scranton’s largest and most successful brewery (1933-54).
PHOTO 12 Pennsylvania Central B.C. ad. Scranton Truth December 19, 1904.
PHOTO 13 Author’s PCBC exhibit at the National Brewery Museum 2011.
Pennsylvania Central Brewing Co.
Brewery combines were all the rage around the turn of the last century. The Pennsylvania Central B.C., formed in 1897, became one of the more successful ones; well-financed and managed by prominent business interests including brewery owners and liquor dealers. The story of this corporation deserves an entire article unto itself to enumerate all of its successes and challenges.
John Peter Persch was a stock promoter of brewery combines. Promoters sold stock in start-up corporations for a percentage of their value. John P. Persch was involved in the formation of the Consumers B.C. of Philadelphia (1896), the PCBC in Scranton (1897), Cleveland-Sandusky B.C. (1898), the Pittsburgh B.C. (1899) and the Independent B.C. of Pittsburgh (1904) and was always busy floating schemes to create even more combines.
In October 1897 Persch gathered the brewery owners and investors interested in creating the Central Pennsylvania B.C. at a secret meeting in Philadelphia. The press reported the ultimate goal was to create a syndication of all the state’s breweries outside of Pittsburgh and that brewers in Reading, Norristown, Pottsville, Lancaster and elsewhere, were planning to meet to discuss the proposed consolidation. The Pennsylvania Central B.C. (PCBC), a consolidation of a dozen firms from Wayne, Lackawanna and Luzerne counties was the ultimate result. The corporation was formed with $10M in capital and a stock offering was made in November.
H.R. Hughes, of the Hughes & Glennon branch in Pittston was elected president of PCBC. The following year Charles Robinson replaced him. Officers: Geo. N. Reichard of Reichard & Weaver in Wilkes-Barre and William Kelly, vice-presidents; A.J. Casey, treasurer; W.G. Harding, secretary. Directors: August Robinson, Philip Robinson, H.W. Jacobs of Arnold’s brewery in Hazleton, Joseph H. Glennon, R.M. Hughes, M. Rutledge of Hughes & Glennon in Pittston and J.G. Hufnagel of E. Robinson’s Sons.
Part of the motivation to consolidate was the result of a large number of small independent breweries competing by lowering prices. One participant complained about the “price wars” which forced him to lower his price for a barrel of beer from $8 to $6. Combining breweries as a single corporation eliminated those self-defeating strategies in order to control prices and profits which attracted wealthy investors.
Cleveland capitalists were reported to be planning to organize Pennsylvania breweries into a single corporation in August 1905. A representative of the group made a $5M cash offer to seven Reading breweries and they were planning to negotiate with the PCBC. At the end of the ten-year contract that breweries signed onto when joining PCBC, Persch went to work trying to form a new combine including some PCBC branches and other breweries but he did not succeed. In August 1907 PCBC officers formed the Pennsylvania Central Realty Co.
Persch was meeting with PCBC stockholders and those of other local breweries in February 1909 to form a new combine. He told the press that a holding company had already been formed to manage the new corporation. P.F. Cusick and Otto Robinson, of Standard B.C. and others were officers. Charles Robinson, president of PCBC flatly denied any involvement, adding there was no interest in Persch’s schemes among PCBC stockholders. The proposed combine would include: Anthracite and Standard of Scranton, Keystone in Dunmore, the Freeland B.C. and half a dozen other firms in Hazleton and Wilkes-Barre. Thus began a debacle which would evolve into a major scandal and lengthy court battle.
To get things started, Persch’s lawyer, holder of 100 shares of PCBC stock, filed an application for a receiver in Federal Court. The judge read a bundle of affidavits filed by management and “scores of stockholders” attesting to PCBC’s solvency. PCBC president Charles Robinson supplied figures which reputed every allegation in the bill of complaint, asserting the case had been brought by John G. Persch of New York in order to force a combination of all brewing interests in the region and that by bankrupting PCBC their assets could be purchased by the new combine for pennies on the dollar.
The proceedings revealed the scheme that Persch, Cusick and others had concocted, getting underlings to sign phony affidavits attesting to PCBC’s insolvency and forcing them to perjure themselves. Cusick had acquired shares in the company, and along with proxies to vote with him, made a bid to take over the company. In 1910 John P. Persch was taken to court for falsely claiming to be involved in companies with which he had no association to give him credibility in promoting combines.
Things got settled out of court. PCBC continued as usual, Cusick never became a director and concentrated his attention to expanding Standard. When prohibition arrived PCBC announced its intention to produce cereal beverages and soda waters and the corporation never came back as a brewing concern after repeal.