The Old Lone Star Brewery complex is located at 200 West Jones Avenue,
downtown San Antonio
Downtown San Antonio is the central business district of San Antonio, Texas, United States. It also serves as the urban core of Greater San Antonio, a metropolitan area with nearly 2.5 million people.
In addition to being encircled by Loops 1604 ...
, county of
Bexar, in the
U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...
of
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
. It was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1972.
History
The design of the complex has been described as "...done up with
turrets and
battlements
A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...
the way Mad
King Ludwig
Ludwig II (Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm; 25 August 1845 – 13 June 1886) was King of Bavaria from 1864 until his death in 1886. He is sometimes called the Swan King or ('the Fairy Tale King'). He also held the titles of Count Palatine of the ...
of Bavaria might have done it, if he had been a St. Louis beer brewer." It was built with funding from San Antonio businessmen John H. Kampmann and Edward Hope, as well as St. Louis businessman
Adolphus Busch
Adolphus Busch (10 July 1839 – 10 October 1913) was the German-born co-founder of Anheuser-Busch with his father-in-law, Eberhard Anheuser. He introduced numerous innovations, building the success of the company in the late 19th and early 20 ...
, who was president of the Lone Star Brewing Company.
In 1920 the
18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the resulting
Volstead Act
The National Prohibition Act, known informally as the Volstead Act, was an act of the 66th United States Congress, designed to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment (ratified January 1919), which established the prohibition of alcoholic d ...
prohibited alcoholic beverages in the country. During this period, the brewery housed the Lone Star Cotton Mills.
Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...
ended in the United States in 1933 when the
21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution repealed the 18th Amendment. However, by that time the building had been temporarily abandoned, and the original brewery owners never occupied it again. The Lone Star name was taken over by a new company that opened a plant at 400 Lone Star Boulevard in San Antonio. The complex was occupied by several different businesses for three decades until it was sold to the San Antonio Museum Association in the 1970s. It is currently home to the
San Antonio Museum of Art
The San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) is an art museum in Downtown San Antonio, Texas, USA. The museum spans 5,000 years of global culture. The museum is housed in the historic former Lone Star Brewery (1886) on the Museum Reach of the San Antonio ...
.
Building details
Albert Beckmann and James Wahrenberger were supervising architects for E. Jugenfeld and Company when it designed and oversaw the construction of the brewery. The complex on the original NRHP designation is the 2-story attached central building, with an overhead 4th story bridge joining the east and west wings The attached east wing is a 5-story building, attached to a 4-story building. The attached west wing is more complex, with a 4-story building, attached to a 5-story building with a tower rising from the top of it. Next to that are two 1-story buildings joined in the middle by a 3-story building. There is a 2-story detached office building. To the rear of the main building are detached service buildings and a courtyard for employees and visitors.
A National Register of Historic Places boundary increase in 1979 added four structures that had been left off the 1972 designation due to resistance from the owner of the property. When the owner sold the property to the San Antonio Museum Association, the National Register of Historic Places was cleared to add the increase. Included in the increase were the -story boiler and equipment room, the 2-story ice manufacturing plant, the 2-story horse stable and vehicle storage, and the 1-story employee wash house.
Gallery
File:SAMA (1).JPG, Old Lone Star Brewery taken from west side of building
File:SAMA (2).JPG, Old Lone Star Brewery west wing showing tower
See also
*
Lone Star Brewing Company
The Lone Star Brewery, built in 1884, was the first large mechanized brewery in Texas. Adolphus Busch, of Anheuser-Busch, founded it along with a group of San Antonio businessmen. The castle-like building which was once its brewery now houses ...
References
{{Reflist, 2
German-American culture in Texas
National Register of Historic Places in San Antonio
Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Texas