Southwestern Brewery and Ice Company

One of the first industries established in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Southwestern Brewery and Ice Co. exemplifies the expansion of manufacturing that took place after the arrival of the railroad in Albuquerque on April 22, 1880. The limitations previously imposed by wagon trains as the only means of transportation had restricted both the importation of necessary machinery and supplies and the shipment of all kinds of bulky or perishable goods. Furthermore, the region's population growth, characterized by large numbers of thirsty laborers who sought recreation in the ubiquitous saloons made a brewery appear to be a promising business opportunity. When the railroad came to Albuquerque a new community sprang up along Railroad Avenue (now Central Avenue) which ran from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe tracks a mile and a half west to the original plaza which had been the center of settlement during the Spanish, Mexican and early Territorial periods of New Mexico history. Appropriately called "New Town" and predominantly Anglo in character, it soon became the site of the town's greatest business activity.

Albuquerque's first brewery was opened in September 1883 by a partnership headed by Joseph DeMars who with his brother-in-law Isidore Mercier had previously been operating a soda water manufacturing business known as The Albuquerque Bottling Co. which produced sasparilla, ginger ale, and similar carbonated beverages. The new concern set up headquarters, one-half mile north of the business district in New Town just east of the railroad tracks on land provided by Ferdinando Selva, an Italian-born stone cutter and saloon owner. A news story published in the Albuquerque Morning Journal on September 28, 1883, announced that the initial capacity would be fifty kegs of beer a day and that plans had been made for a large ice plant whose production would be used both in the brewery and for outside sales. Oswald A. Petrie was to be brewmaster with Clement Stockbridge as his assistant. Although De Mars and his associates had high hopes for their new venture it was soon evident that they were faced with serious problems of undercapitalization and lack of technical expertise.

Early the following year Petrie was replaced as brewmaster by John Koenig, a German immigrant who had learned the beer business while employed by the Anheuser-Busch Co. in St. Louis and had recently come to Albuquerque by way of El Paso. Unfortunately, Koenig soon showed himself to be possessed of a nasty disposition when under the influence of strong drink and on July 1, 1884, was shot and killed during an angry confrontation at the brewery over its ownership. Charges were filed against DeMars and Selva for murder and, although these were eventually dismissed, both men were required to post substantial bonds which compounded their growing financial problems, particularly for DeMars who was having difficulty paying for the supplies which he and Mercier needed in their various business enterprises. Only a week prior to the shooting DeMars, his wife Odille and Mercier had mortgaged all their property including the bottling works, the brewery equipment, fixtures in two Albuquerque saloons, two wagons, and a buggy, even the family piano for $13,430.

The mortgagee was a self-styled speculator named George Lail, a contractor from Missouri who had come west to build grades on the Atlantic and Pacific railroad through Arizona. Six months later Lail, who was later elected mayor of Albuquerque in 1886, bought from Selva the land and holdings which housed the brewery for $2,440 and, thus, became the effective owner of the business although DeMars continued to act as manager. The new arrangement was unable to solve the brewery's fundamental problems, however, and both Lail and DeMars were forced to seek new financing. Early in 1886, a new mortgage for all their holdings was given to Albuquerque barber Louis A. Tessier for a mere $3,400. One year later the brewery was leased to M. M. Tompkins, a San Francisco investor, but these efforts to provide financial stability were of no avail because the brewery was destroyed by fire on June 29, 1887, despite the heroic efforts of a volunteer bucket brigade. This disaster led Tessier to initiate foreclosure proceedings and the company's remaining assets were auctioned off in a sheriff's sale on January 5, 1888. Nevertheless, a new brewery and ice corporation was to arise almost literally from the ashes of the old.

A few months prior to the fire, the original company had purchased an ammonia absorption ice manufacturing machine from the Reading Iron Works of Reading, Pa. Known in the trade as the "Rankin machine" because of certain patents used in its construction owned by Thomas L. Rankin, it had been sold to the Albuquerque firm by William A. Rankin, Thomas' brother, then a resident of Lawrence, Kansas, and salesman for Reading Iron Works, a company which was itself on the verge of bankruptcy. When this corporation failed Thomas L. Rankin agreed to accept the commercial paper outstanding on the machine installed in Albuquerque as part of the payment for patent royalties and other obligations due him. Aware of the Albuquerque brewery's precarious financial situation W. A. Rankin began making plans to establish a rival brewery and ice company to protect his brother's interests, even before the fire which actually simplified the situation for him. He purchased a tract of land just south of the original brewery lot from the ever-obliging Selva and formed a new partnership with Odille DeMars, Joseph's wife, to conduct a brewing business. His son, Don J. Rankin, also a former employee of the Reading Iron Works, moved to Albuquerque and took charge of the ice machine.

By December 1887 Rankin and DeMars were advertising themselves in the local press as the purveyors of Pearl Beer. At the bankruptcy sale of the original brewery, Rankin purchased much of the equipment of the older company. Documentation of this period is incomplete but it is evident that the enigmatic Rankin and DeMars partnership was short-lived, probably because of chronic money problems. On April 16, 1888, the Southwestern Brewery and Ice Co. were incorporated by W. A., T. L., and Don J. Rankin plus two Albuquerque citizens who were needed to fulfill residency requirements under New Mexico law. One year later the corporation made a great stride towards solving the management problem by persuading Jacob Loebs, a brewmaster with long experience in the Cherokee Brewery in St. Louis, to come to Albuquerque and assume the direction of the company. The following year Loebs was joined by his brother Henry, also a Cherokee alumnus, who assisted in manufacturing the beer. Don J. Rankin acted in the capacity of "outside man" supervising the construction and maintenance of improvements, overseeing the ice machine, collecting receivable accounts, and soliciting new business.

Gradually this management team was able to move the brewery out of the red and into a profit-making situation. During the next ten years, its trade area was extended into the coal mining camps of Gallup and Madrid and across Arizona to the growing towns of Winslow, Ash Fork, and Kingman. Within Albuquerque, the firm was servicing up to thirty-two saloons and providing financial assistance to some of their owners in the form of loans to purchase licenses or new equipment and advances to handle checks to cash on paydays. Although the ice machine had a capacity beyond the needs of the brewery its production was not particularly profitable because the ice was sold to the saloons very near cost to hold their beer trade. Furthermore, the railroad business was monopolized by the Agua Pura Co. of Las Vegas, N. M. who cut and stored natural ice and were able to sell their product at about one-half the price needed for machine-made ice. Through persistent efforts, Don Rankin was able to secure favorable freight rates for mixed carloads of ice and beer for small customers in nearby towns and to get a tariff schedule competitive with that used by eastern brewers who were reshipping their product out of Albuquerque warehouses and bottling works after 1892.

In the late 1890s, following a decade of substantial dividends, Jacob and Henry Loebs who held the majority of the outstanding shares besides being president and secretary-treasurer of the company respectively began a program of extensive capital improvements which the minority stockholders found distasteful. By this time T. L. Rankin's shares had been purchased by his nephew Harry L. Rankin, W. A.'s son. In addition, a small number of shares had been issued to Fred Rankin, the third son of w. A., who sold them to one H. L. Lamy of Denver. In 1901 Harry L. Rankin approached the Loebs brothers with an offer to either buy their interests or sell his shares to them but no agreement was reached. Failing in this he then joined forces with Lamy to bring suit against the two Loebs itemizing a long list of charges of mismanagement. Don J. Rankin then entered the fray as an intervenor and a monumental legal battle began. After a bewildering welter of depositions, writs and cross-bills were duly filed the Loebs were finally more or less exonerated by a decision of the New Mexico Supreme Court. In 1907 Jacob Loebs died and was succeeded as president of the Southwestern Brewery and Ice Co. by Otto Dieckmann, an Albuquerque insurance executive.

Following Dieckmann's death in 1913 company affairs were characterized by numerous changes in management. In 1915 the corporation became the Western Brewery and Ice Co. and, after the passage of the 18th Amendment, its name was changed again to the Western Ice and Bottling Co. although the brewing division had probably been closed sometime before because of World War I restrictions on the use of grain in alcoholic beverages. The brewery was never reopened but ice manufacture has continued to the present time and the production of distilled water for medical purposes and for use in automobile batteries was begun in the 1920s. In 1952 the company was purchased by the Southeastern Public Service Co. a nationwide conglomerate that leases a large portion of the buildings to other companies for cold storage purposes in addition to continuing the production of ice and distilled water. Today, the imposing brick structures remain as reminders of Albuquerque's years of first growth, evidence of the development of the early and significant industry.