BREWERIES WERE COMMONPLACE HERE AT TURN OF CENTURY

The Cape Girardeau Brewing Co. is a familiar name to Cape Girardeau.

The company name first surfaced more than 120 years ago when George Henninger established Cape Girardeau Brewery Co. at Morgan Oak and Middle streets in 1876.

The company eventually became Cape Brewing and Ice Co., but following 14 years of national prohibition, Henry H. Vogelsang reorganized Cape Girardeau Brewing Co. and operated a brewery until it closed operations in 1939.

The newest Cape Girardeau Brewing Co. is that founded by Mark Sprigg and Phil Brinson, who have announced plans for a micro-brewery, which will be established at Broadway and Main downtown.

Sprigg, who works at St. Francis Medical Center, has long been interested in brewing beer and has been a home brewer for 20 years.

Brinson is owner of Rufus Mudsuckers, a restaurant and lounge that opened last year at Main and Independence and Jeremiah's at Sikeston.

Food and a variety of beers will be available at the new mini-brewery.

The Cape Girardeau City Council recently gave preliminary approval for microbreweries to do business, with a final approval expected before the end of February.

The city's previous zoning ordinance considered brewing as manufacturing and had been limited to heavy industrial areas. The new changes would allow microbreweries in areas zoned as general commercial, central business districts or light industrial.

Beer produced at a microbrewery could be sold, both on and off the premises.

Breweries were commonplace in Cape Girardeau at the turn of the century

Three breweries were in operation, and a number of brewers had come and gone.

The Cape Girardeau Brewery Co. featured Standard Lager, Drummers' Choice and Royal Beer, sending its products throughout Southeast Missouri, Southern Illinois, Northern Arkansas and even Eastern Kansas.

Two other breweries here at the time were the Columbia Brewing Co., 500 Main; and Green Tree Brewery on North Water. Germania Beer Co., operated by Frederick Henninger, had existed at the site of Cape Brewery for more than 25 years.

Cape Brewery and Ice was founded by George Henninger. It was later sold to Adolph Ruediger. Two more owners -- William Regenhardt and William H. Coerver -- were recorded before the business was sold to Koeck, Snyder and Forster.

Brewmaster Max J. Koeck and F.W. Snyder obtained the brewery in 1906, with plans for a $150,000 expansion, making the brewery the largest operation outside of St. Louis and Kansas City. The expansion project resulted in two levels of the building under ground, for storage of beer. Also involved in the new brewery was Dr. Otto E. Forster, Koeck's father-in-law.

The brewery took up almost a half block just south of Morgan Oak, along Middle Street.

Shortly after acquiring the Cape Girardeau Brewing Co., Forster and Koeck purchased a team of horses to pull a new beer wagon during the fair in Cape Girardeau.

Within a year, the company had introduced two new beers to the area -- Capaha and Ideal.

Koeck, who was from Germany, learned the practical part of the brewing business in Germany but attended and graduated in an American school at St Louis as a brewmaster.

But the company came under some harsh criticism when it imported some less expensive brands for sale. The Cape Girardeau Brewery Association threatened to boycott Cape Brewery for selling the imported beer at prices less than local products.

Everything worked out, and Forster and Koeck operated the brewery until the United States stepped in with its 1920 prohibition amendment that outlawed the manufacture, sale or transportation of alcoholic beverages.

Cape Brewery and Ice Co. then entered a new line of business, with the factory converted into a plant for making soft drinks and ice cream products, and the levels underground used for cold storage purposes.

National prohibition did not eliminate the making and drinking of alcoholic beverages.

-- Many people made their own beer and wine.

-- Bootleggers met much of the demand for the illegal alcoholic beverages.

-- Liquor by the millions of gallons was smuggled into the United States from Canada.

After more than a dozen years, Congress passed the 21st Amendment, which repealed the 18th Amendment, and national prohibition ended on Dec. 5, 1933.

Vogelsang, who had operated an ice and fuel company just south of the old shoe factory building on North Main, sold his ice operations and organized the Cape Girardeau Brewing Co., which began beer operations in 1934 in the old Cape Brewing and Ice Co. facilities, averaging about 30 barrels of beer a day.

The brewmaster for Vogelsang was no other than Max J. Koeck, who worked with Vogelsang until 1936, when Koeck accepted a job as brewmaster in California.

The brewery closed in 1940.

A St. Louis company purchased the equipment used in the brewery operation. The large vats and other brewery equipment were moved, via truck and railroad, to St. Louis in February 1943.

A fire destroyed most of the building in 1952. The building at that time was occupied by Missouri Electric Works.