Now somewhat less of a historic district, the Bozeman Brewery Historic District has recently lost its brewery building, or what was left of it. Built by Julius Lehrkind in 1895 across the street from the still standing bottling plant, the brewery was in operation until the passage of prohibition in Montana in 1919. Sometime after that the brewery building was partially demolished and, sometime between 2014 and 2017 the job was completed, the remainder of the building torn down, leaving only a grassy field where it stood. A photo of the brewery building circa 2014 follows.
In 1925, Julius' grandson Carl built the bottling plant across the street from the brewery, bottling soft drinks. When prohibition was repealed in 1932, Edwin Lehrkind revived the brewery business for a short time under the label of "Old Faithful". This attempt was short lived, the brewery facility then continuing in use as an ice plant, warehouse, creamery and other enterprises. After the bottling plant was closed the business was used as a retail outlet, selling ice, coal and wood. On the west side of the building remains an old painted sign advertising "Pure Ice Co. Coal Wood", the sign partially overwritten by "Coca Cola".
As part of a series of historical retrospectives on the city of Bozeman the Bozeman Magazine, in February of 2014, published a lengthy and informative article on the Bozeman Brewery Historic District, the beginning of which follows.
Historic District Spotlight: Bozeman’s Brewery District
Courtney Kramer | Thursday Feb. 27th, 2014
Located on the 700 and 800 blocks of North Wallace Avenue, the Bozeman Brewery Historic District is one of two industrial historic districts in Bozeman. Like the Story Mill District, the Brewery District reflects Bozeman’s position as a center of agriculture-related industry...
...After three years in Virginia City, German immigrants Jacob Spieth and Charles Krug relocated to Bozeman in 1867 and established the Spieth and Krug Brewery. It’s unclear if the two worked for Gilbert before developing their own operation in a two story, clapboard covered structure where Bozeman Creek intersects with East Main Street. The original Spieth and Krug Brewery, with a Greek Revival style false-front, was replaced in 1883 with a two-story brick structure in the Italianate style at the same location. The building is now the location of Pita Pit restaurant.
After the deaths of Krug in 1888 and Spieth in 1892, the brewery business was acquired by Julius Lehrkind in 1895. A German immigrant, Lehrkind had 35 years of experience in American brewery operations. The previous year Lehrkind consolidated his brewery in Davenport, Iowa, with four others to establish the Davenport Malting Company. After selling his share, Lehrkind traveled with his family and a crew of brewery workers in three special railroad cars to Bozeman in March 1895.
Lehrkind relocated brewing operations to a new facility on North Wallace Avenue in order to take advantage of access to the Northern Pacific Railway, which established a spur line into the brewery by 1912.
Lehrkind oversaw construction of the new brewery, which became the largest building in Bozeman until construction of the Fieldhouse on the MSU campus in 1957. The L-shaped Lehrkind Brewery was a colossus in the industrial North East neighborhood. The building’s rubblestone foundation sat on a two-foot bed of washed sand which improved the site’s drainage. The two-story red brick façade along North Wallace was asymmetrical, with street-level entrance arch to the interior courtyard to the left of the façade’s center. Double and triple hung windows above sandstone sills provided light and ventilation to the building’s interior. A tall parapet extended above the flat roof and included a semi-circular sign declaring “Julius Lehrkind, 1895, Genuine Lager Brewery.”
Read on at the Bozeman Magazine