Beer, Brats, and Baseball, 2nd Edition

by Jim Merkel

Overview

St. Louis is, as much as anything, a German city. Beer, Brats, and Baseball: St. Louis Germans examines the often-serious, sometimes funny, and truly amazing story of Germans in the Gateway City from the arrival of the ?rst German priest right after the city's founding to the present.

Hoping for freedom and a better life, Germans started coming en masse in the 1830s and put their stamp on the frontier outpost. By 1860, native-born Germans amounted to more than a quarter of the city's population, with their own newspapers, theaters, clubs, and churches.

Less than a month after Confederates attacked Fort Sumter, thousands of German volunteers provided the troops for the assault that guaranteed Missouri would stay in the Union. After the Civil War ended, Germans brewed the beer, named the streets, ran the local baseball team, and were a force in city politics. In their drive for success, which some might call Teutonic stubbornness, Germans formed industries, communities, and institutions that remain vibrant today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681060057
Publisher:	Reedy press, LLC.
Publication date:	08/01/2015
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	522,545
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Jim Merkel's great-great grandfather arrived in St. Louis from Germany in 1858 and started making pianos. A lifelong journalist, Merkel has reported for the Suburban Journals in St. Louis since 1991. He is the author of "Hoosiers and Scrubby Dutch: St. Louis's South Side."

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction xi

Pioneers (before 1865)

Camp Jackson 4

Father Bernard de Limpach 7

Gottfried Duden 9

Heinrich Boernstein 12

Scholar Farmers 15

German-Language Newspapers 17

Herr Riese 19

George Englemann 21

Carl Wimar 24

Friedrich Hecker 27

Gustave Koerner 29

Carl Schurz 32

Franz Sigel 35

Middle Years (1865-1945)

German Names 40

German-Language Schools 42

St. Louis Symphony 45

Count Adolph von Donkberg 47

1904 Olympic Games 49

German Day at the Fair 51

Mallinckrodt 53

World War I Persecution 56

Robert Paul Prager 58

Maeystown Attacks 60

Dr. Max Starkloff 62

Das Deutsche Haus 65

The Joy of Cooking 68

Westliche Post 71

German POWs 73

Henry Gerecke 75

Matters of Faith

Jewish Germans in St. Louis 80

Rudy Oppenheim 83

Sts. Peter and Paul Church 86

Germans and Irish 89

Schools Sisters of Notre Dame 91

St. Johns Evangelical United Church of Christ 94

Freethinkers 96

Martin Stephan 99

The Mayors

German-American Mayors 104

Henry Overstolz 106

Henry Kiel 109

Bernard Dickmann 111

William Dee Becker 113

Vincent C. Schoemehl 115

Recent Years (1946-present)

A. E. Schmidt Billiard Co. 120

German Cultural Society 122

Harvey Ries 124

The Stock Family 126

Concordia Turners 128

Strassenfest 131

German Funeral Homes 133

Guy Golterman 136

Places

Granite City 140

South Country 143

Washington, Missouri 145

Baden 148

German Statuary 150

German Street Names 152

Beer, Brats, and Baseball

German Breweries 156

The Lemp Family 158

Other Busch Breweries 161

The Griesedieck Family 164

Tony Faust's Restaurant 167

Jazz 169

Bardenheiers 171

Chris von der Ahe 173

Busch Buys the Cards 176

G&W Sausage 178

Bob Broeg 180

The First Black Forest 183

Restaurant Memories 184

Reconnecting

Lansing Hecker 188

Deutschmeister Brass Band 190

German Restaurants Today 192

Oktoberfest 195

Maifest 197

German-Language Classes 199

Sister Cities 201

Genealogy 203

Acknowledgments and Sources 209