Christe Raber

Upper Sandusky Apartment Building was Formerly Upper Sandusky Brewery

(photos will be included with this article shortly)

Although now used as living quarters, the apartment building located on Kirby Hill, route 30, was once a brewery. Severin Bechler started Bechler's brewery in 1876.The building was located on the corner of Third and Fourth Streets overlooking Kirby Hill in Upper Sandusky. 

A year later, Henry Alstaetter became Bechler's business partner.During this time period, the brewery was known as Alstaetter and Bechler's.In 1883 the two men parted ways and Severin Bechler operated the business alone until his death in 1886.Bechler left no heirs to run the brewery, and it fell into disrepair.

Bernard Michelfelder, also a German immigrant, bought Bechler's in 1898.He changed the name of the business to the Upper Sandusky Brewery.In 1902 the company reported that one of its beverages, "Wyandot Pride" had the reputation of being a first class beer.The company also reported producing between 6,000 and 7,000 barrels of beer a year.

The Upper Sandusky Brewery passed into the hands of new owner, John Freimann, in 1905.Freimann soon added on to the operation and began producing Wyandot County's first artificially made ice.Because this was such a novelty, the company froze a two-foot tall doll in ice, placed the entire chuck onto the back of a horse drawn wagon belonging to George W. Schwilk and drove it around town for people to see.Bets were placed on how long it would take for the ice to melt and set the doll free.At the height of production, the Upper Sandusky Brewery was producing three to four chunks of ice every hour of the day and night.It took between 36 and 48 hours for a 300-pound block of ice to fully freeze.

The next owner of the brewery was another German immigrant, Albert H. Martens.Martens had owned and operated a grocery store and saloon in Detroit before purchasing the Upper Sandusky Brewery in 1911.This man continued producing both artificially made ice and beer.At this time, the brewery manufactured 5,000 barrels of beer annually.

During the early 1900s when prohibition supporters were advocating the end of beer production in the United States, Martens sold the company back to the Freimann family.Lorenzo Freimann ran the business and changed the name of the brewery to theFreimann Beverage and Ice Plant.During prohibition, 1920-1933, the company ceased making beer and began manufacturing soda pop, malt, and near beer.In 1933, after prohibition ended, the Freimann family went back to producing beer in addition to carbonated beverages.During that year, the company produced 130 barrels of light and dark beer per day. 

In 1942 the Freimanns sold the brewery to a Cleveland man named Koppler.Two years later Koppler sold the brewery to a Mr. Zumkehr.In the early 1950s the brewery closed for good.

The Wyandot County Museum has on exhibit a number of the bottles and photographs of the Upper Sandusky Brewery and Freimann's Beverage and Ice Plant.

Wyandot County Museum Intern, Lori Yeager, supplied the research for this article.