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Fleck's Brewery -- If you didn't get to Faribo by 1970, you missed it!
Faribault resident Brian W. Schmidt, 42, moved to Faribault with his family in 1971. By the time he first visited the old Fleck's Brewery as a boy -- to search for beer bottles and other memorabilia -- the place was already a pile of rubble, quickly becoming overgrown with vegetation. Now, Brian is in the process of compiling a PowerPoint presentation on CD which will chronicle the history of the brewery. He has over 200 photos collected already (including those you see to the left), and has asked ssmweb.net to solicit all Old Shads and Saints for any pictures or other memorabilia that we might have of the brewery. If you can help, contact Brian at brianwschmidt@charter.net.
Yes, for those of you who don't know, there was once a brewery at the bottom of the path that leads down the bluff from Whipple. The picture below shows the front office of the brewery, the Fleck's Beer bottle icon in front, and the Fleckenstein's mansion in the background. The "brewery path" that we remember so well comes down the hill from Whipple, toward the camera, just out of the picture at extreme left. The camera is standing in the road that we walked past the brewery on the way to Faribault. The rock formation on the extreme right is the sandstone bluff into which caves were cut for aging the beer. The brewery itself was literally "built in" to the bluff. When Your Humble Webmaster arrived at Shattuck for the summer session in 1968, the mansion was long gone -- no sign that it had ever been there. However, the beer bottle icon and the brewery itself were still standing, albeit in a state of extreme disrepair. In those days, it was still possible to explore all the caves that had been carved into the bluff.
The following shot is taken from the spot where the Fleckenstein's mansion stood, looking at the side of the brewery that faced up the hill, toward the mansion and Shattuck beyond. The road we walked into town is at extreme right (note the beer bottle icon). In 1968-69, enough of the brewery was still standing that you could climb to the top of the tower, and as you did, you could look down on the hole in a lower floor where the single brew kettle once stood. It was approximately 20' in diameter. Just out of sight across the road at extreme right was a one-story building, probably a warehouse, and in 1968-69 it was still possible to traverse the underground tunnel that ran under the road between the brewery and the other building. In this shot, the Fleckenstein's show off their delivery fleet. (Apparently Shattuck wasn't the only edifice with ivy growing on it.) After demolition of the main buildings, the last structure standing was a 12' x 12' blockhouse which certain valiant members of the Class of ' 72 turned into a party hut. One quarter of what would eventually become that party hut can be seen in the picture below, projecting from the ground floor, just beyond the right-most Fleck's vehicle, between the ivy-covered office to its right, and the 4-story part of the main building to its left. Of course nothing good is meant to last, and even that great party hut was eventually flattened.
Drinking and driving was certainly okay if you were a Fleck's delivery man:
Since we had to pass the brewery to get to just about everywhere else (except St. Mary's), this site's page of links you might enjoy that AREN'T a part of ssmweb.net was named
long before Brian Schmidt sent in these great pics. Now go look through your old school pictures, and if you have anything worth sharing, contact Brian Schmidt at brianwschmidt@charter.net . Perhaps when Brian finishes his project we can persuade him to share a few more shots with us.