Beer and history

Photo: (University of Oregon Libraries)

Introducing “before they were famous: breweries, bars and brewpub buildings in former lives.”

I like beer, especially great local Oregon beer. I also like local history. Mix the two and you have…an excuse to drink more beer.

Many, if not most, of our local breweries and drinking establishments are housed in older buildings just by the fact that rarely is a new brewery built from scratch because let’s face it, most older buildings have an existing personality, architectural touches, good location, and good bones. As I’ve sat at many a bar and sipped on a cold one, I’ve often visualized the building in its previous life – Storefont? Office building? House of ill repute? Haunted by a 1920s flapper girl? [Ghosts are always romantic figures like a scorned lover from the 1920s that threw herself out the window. How many junkies that OD’ed on smack in a flophouse stick around to haunt the place?]

Photo courtesy of PDX Pipeline.

Anyhow, one good quick example I’ve always liked is the re-use of the Q-Hut building by Green Dragon on SE 9th [see above photo] – what a great illustration of a wonderfully, simply utilitarian structure such as a Quonset hut. If it works, has structural integrity, then why not?

So, first up in this series is an obvious choice, for me at least: Widmer’s Gasthaus on North Russell Street. That part of town always seems a bit deserted on weekend afternoons and offers an interesting walking opportunity around and under the freeway bridges and surrounding neighborhoods.

Last fall I was attending Widmer’s Oktoberfest, chugging down a pint of [probably] Okto in the warm sun in the blocked off street when I really had the chance to look at the exterior of the building that houses the Gasthaus. I found myself staring at the building for far too long that the building itself was starting to get a bit uncomfortable with the situation. And then the usual questions [other than, “Do I have more beer tickets?”] When was it built? What used to be here?

So, I reached out to Widmer and got some great answers:

•    The building that houses the Gasthaus is the Smithson building, built in 1890, and is adjoined by the McKay building, built in 1887.
•    The two buildings were used originally as businesses on the ground level, and apartments upstairs, where workers who built ships down on Swan Island would stay.
•    The space where the Gasthaus is located was originally an Italian restaurant, then a tavern, then in 1969 the experimental Storefront Theatre [there’s a post all its own], then finally, the Widmer Gasthaus.

What are some of your favorite drinking hole’s and their history? I’ll be doing more of these posts during the summer.

Update: heard from Capital Taps, a blog based out of Salem that focuses on beer…and history. Check it out.