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The SOB Governor
On this day in 1992, Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson was made an honorary member of the Society of Oshkosh Brewers. Thompson was touring the area when SOB Jim Lundstrom presented him with a club...
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Peabody's and the Atwood Bathhouse
The name H. A. Atwood is written in brick near the top of the building at 544 N. Main. You have to look closely to see it, but it’s there.544 N. Main Street.The building is home to Peabody's Tavern....
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The Crutch
Here is a disturbing artifact. It’s the infamous Pee Crutch from the sorely missed Repp’s Bar. This relic has been retired from active service and now resides in a private collection where it’s used...
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Keeping Oshkosh Wet with Mayor McHenry
Oshkosh never gave in to Prohibition. This place was always a drinking town. No reactionary law contrived by bigots and bluenoses was going to change that. The personification of the city’s resistance...
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William Leard’s Garden of Evil
Here’s an old part of town with some history that’s gone missing…The southeast corner of Washington and Rosalia.That corner is part of the Washington Avenue Historic District, which is listed on the...
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Beyond Beer and Back
These are strange times for small breweries. A generational shift in drinking habits has led to beer consumption levels hitting a 25-year low. For craft brewers, the downward trend has been evident...
View ArticleA Trip Down Lost Memory Lane
Here's a short video Mike McArthur of the Oshkosh Public Library and I made about the saloon spawned wild life that once inhabited Ceape Ave… I’m even wearing my SOB shirt!
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Romlow’s Last Chance
This is what waited for you at the end of Oregon Street 130 years ago…And this is that same spot today…Chester V’s Gastropub, 2505 Oregon St.There are a lot of folks in Oshkosh who can't see that place...
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A Bock, 33 Breweries, and 175 Years of Beer from Oshkosh
Here’s one last beer in celebration of this year’s 175th anniversary of brewing in Oshkosh.175 Bock is being released today (Nov. 29) in a commemorative can and on draft at Fox River Brewing in...
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A Little Fun With the Boys
The City of Oshkosh was just 15 years old when it was inducted into the ranks of nation’s most wicked cities. The special status wasn’t entirely unearned. But the town’s savage renown became so...
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Oshkosh Classics
Oshkosh Classics is a 32-page, full-color, magazine-sized booklet of historic Oshkosh beer recipes. The booklet is aimed primarily at homebrewers, but anyone interested in Oshkosh's brewing history or...
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The 50-Year Club
Oshkosh had more than 90 taverns in 1975. All but a few of them are gone. Some were condemned and knocked flat. Others went broke and were turned into another kind of business. A bunch of them were...
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Big Ed's House of Pleasure
Bagnio | bäˌnyō1) A brothel.2) A bath or bathing house.3) A prison or slave quarters in the Ottoman Empire.Big Ed Sanford’s Bagnio was not a bathhouse. And it was far from the Ottoman Empire. Big Ed's...
View ArticleTalking Wisconsin Beer with David Knuth
Dave Knuth of Knuth Brewing recently started a podcast. He asked me to sit in with him for this latest episode to talk about some local beer history. The video of that chat is below, or you can watch...
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Mr. Sweet's Impossible Dream
At the turn of the century, Oshkosh was known everywhere as a city full of saloons and soaking in beer. Into the swamp stepped an itinerant preacher named Sylvester Sweet. A drawing of Sweet from...
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Peoples and the Chief
The Oshkosh Brewing Company closed in 1971. The brewery quickly sold its brands – including Chief Oshkosh – to its neighbor across the street, Peoples Brewing Company. These two display ads were issued...
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The Fond du Lac Comeback
Fond du Lac’s 88-year drought is coming to an end. This morning Lyle Hari of Fond du Lac Beer is brewing the first batch of commercial beer made in Fond du Lac since 1937.Lyle Hari, March 18, 2025.Lyle...
View ArticleTalking Robert Brand and Sons
I recently made a short video with Mike McArthur from the Oshkosh Public Library about Robert Brand and Sons, an Oshkosh company that became famous for outfitting saloons throughout the Midwest. And...
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Saloons of the Old West Side
It used to be called the West Side. But that name was lost 50 years ago. Also lost is the social life that thrived there. The heart of the old West Side – often called West Algoma – ran along Oshkosh...
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Bare Bones 1895 Bock
The Oshkosh Brewing Company released its first Bock Beer 130 years ago. To commemorate the anniversary, Bare Bones Brewery will release a replica of that original Bock this Saturday at the brewery’s...
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Speakeasies of the Old West Side
The old West Side was considered a village unto itself when Prohibition arrived in 1920. The Fox River and Sawyer Creek formed a border separating the neighborhood from the east and south sides of...
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Taverns of the Old West Side
The taverns of the old West Side were home to a post-Prohibition social scene that welcomed people from every part of Oshkosh. West Algoma, as it was often called, was no longer an isolated community...
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Bar Crawling with Robert Brand
The Robert Brand & Sons Company built almost everything needed to outfit a saloon: bars, backbars, screens, cigar and liquor cases, booths, ice boxes... Brand was to Oshkosh’s drinking culture what...
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Moonshine on the Frog Farm
Prohibition began in 1920... But there was no chance America would go authentically dry as long as there were places like Oshkosh and people like Frank Kinderman. Oshkosh was too attached to its...
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Oshkosh’s Bathtub Bootleggers
Stories about Prohibition are too often over-populated with flashy gangsters like Al Capone or Bugs Moran. But in Oshkosh, those stories never rang true. Here, the war against Prohibition wasn’t fought...
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