THE STAG HOTEL / CAFE / BAR
The Stag was three entities: a hotel, a cafe, and a bar. The first item above is the folded front of an advertising postal that was held closed only by the stamp. Mailed in 1909 it also had a stamp on the back that was also cancelled, unfortunately that stamp has fallen off. They may have added the 2nd stamp for fear that the stamp holding it closed would be damaged or come off, instead it was the 2nd stamp that fell off although I am sure that did not happen until many years later. The center item is a business card from the new manager that was placed inside. The 4th item is a ad for the hotel and the last item shows what this complex looked like six years later in 1915. Obviously the business venture was not a booming success.
Redtop Hospitality Room
Red Top Rye
211 E. Court St.
By the end of WWII the Red Top Brewery was one of Cincinnati's three big breweries, along with Hudepohl and Burger. They had bought the buildings of old John Hauck Brewing Co. on Dayton St. at Central Avenue plus the facilities of the Cliffside Brewery on West McMicken in 1945. In 1947 a million barrels of beer and ale were being produced. Due to badly timed expansion the company faced mounting financial losses. Redtop sold out to a Miller High Life distributorship in 1955. It was then sold in 1957 to a Michigan firm which closed Red Top and laid off its 150 employees. In 1961 the buildings were sold for use as light manufacturing and storage.
These two cards are from a set of at least four cards. Unfortunately I was unable to obtain the other two cards. One of the missing cards show the Bottling Department and the other shows a view of the buildings exterior. This brewery started in 1849 on Augusta St. between John and Smith Sts. In 1863 it was moved to Freeman Ave. at Court St. The Bottling Dept. was added in 1879 and was located north of the main building on Fillmore St. In 1863 production was 5000 barrels a day, 80,000 barrels were produced in 1890. Prohibition forced the brewery to close in 1919 but it reopened in 1933. The brewery closed for good in 1937. Nothing remains of this brewery.
The Hudepohl Brewing Company put out this postcard in the 1980's. They revived the Christian Moerlein name in 1981 as a tribute to Cincinnati's long tradition and history of the brewing industry. The label is from an 1890's ad.
I always thought these were barrels of beer but I haven't figured out what brewery it is. Anyone know?
Meier's Wines located in Silverton
THE ATLANTIC GARDENS
I have not seen any postcards of the establishment
but since it closed in 1904 I believe there must be some "out there".
When it first opened in 1879 it was a highly respectable watering hole. It
became the home of the sporting gentry of Cincinnati. John L Sullivan knocked
out "Professor" Mike Donaldson here in December 1880. Since prize
fighting was illegal both fighters wore gloves which was loudly razzed by the
patrons. The tavern had a raised dais along one wall where the musicians
would play and there was a water fountain in the lobby.
Slowly the Gardens began to go downhill, according to legend the Atlantic
had been open continuously day and night and the place was packed to the doors.
Fights were constantly breaking out and the atmosphere was thick with smoke and
profanity. It became a haunt for sailors on furlough and the doors closed for
good in 1904.
GEORGE REMUS - A CINCINNATI BOOTLEGGER
George Remus was born in Germany in 1876 and migrated to
Chicago at the age of 5. His father was incapacitated when he was 14 and George
supported the family by working at a pharmacy, which he bought at age 19. Within
5 more years, he bought another drugstore, married, and had a daughter. He soon
tired of the pharmacy business, studied law and
became a lawyer in 1900, at age 24.
He specialized in criminal defense, especially murder, in one year
he had defended 18 persons accused of murder and became
rather famous. By 1919, when prohibition had become effective in many states,
Remus was giving counsel to various individuals charged with violating the
liquor laws and he saw what huge profits could be made by the sale of liquor. He divorced
his wife after he began
having an affair with his beautiful and ambitious secretary (Imogene). Alcohol
Prohibition started in January 1920, and within a few months Remus saw that his
clients, a rather crude and ignorant lot, were becoming wealthy very quickly.
He memorized the Volstead Act (that enforced prohibition) and found
loopholes whereby he could buy distilleries and pharmacies so as to sell liquor
himself under government licenses for medicinal purposes. Most of the liquor
would disappear on the way to market because he would hi-jack it. He moved to Cincinnati because 80 percent
of America's bonded whiskey was produced within 300 miles, and the city
contained many distilleries. He bought up most of
America's best known whiskey manufacturers including Fleischmann Distillery that
he bought for $197,000 and which came with 3100 gallons of whiskey already made.
In less than 3 years he made $40 million and his organization had
as many as 3,000 loyal, well paid employees. One Covington associate received
$208,000 in commissions for safely handling his liquor consignments. His entire
operation depended on "The Fix". He bribed hundreds of
police, judges, and government officials including $500,000 to the U.S. Attorney
General. He estimated that during his heyday he had spent over $20,000,000 in
bribes. He was quoted as saying, "Men have tried to corner the wheat market
only to learn there is too much wheat in the world, I tried to corner the graft
market, but there isn't enough money in the world to buy up all the public
officials who demand their share of the graft."
Rumor had it that George bribed federal agents to guard the bonded
whiskey at his warehouses. Remus extracted the whiskey from the barrels and
replaced it with water so that when federal inspectors checked the warehouses,
all the barrels would be full. After his operations expanded to Indiana and
Kentucky, he became known as the "King of the Bootleggers." He needed
12 lieutenants to manage the procurement, distribution and public affairs,
better known as bribery. Shipments were sent out by car, truck, and even full
boxcar loads. He deposited huge sums of money into various banks. In one quarter
in 1921, he banked $2,700,000 in a single Cincinnati bank. His net worth was estimated at $70,000,00.
Although Bugsy Siegal is acknowledged as the founder of Las Vegas,
he did it with the money George was able to provide. George is also regarded as
putting Newport, Kentucky on the map. Newport became known as "Little
Mexico," because law enforcement in this area of Northern Kentucky was as
lax and corrupt as that of Tijuana, Mexico. Newport was famous for its nightlife
and illegal gambling activities. During and after prohibition, it was estimated
that there were over 30,000 speakeasies in Cincinnati and Newport.
George and Imogene, who he had married in Newport, Ky. in 1920, held
many lavish parties at their mansion in Price
Hill at 825 Hermosa Avenue known as the "Marble Palace." On New Year's 1922-23. The guests
included 100 couples who were as well-connected as you could get. At dawn Remus
presented all their male guests with diamond jewelry, and gave each guest's wife
a brand new automobile for the drive home. A similar party was held in June
1923, during his problems with the government, when he gave the 50 women guests
a brand new Pontiac. This was his high point.
Remus was finally shut down by a few honest federal agents who
couldn't be bought. On May 16, 1922 Remus along with his 12 lieutenants were
sentenced to prison. Remus found
himself sentenced to 2 years in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, which was (for
rich inmates) much like a luxury hotel. Remus fought his conviction for the next
2 years going all the way to the Supreme Court, he lost.
On January 24, 1924 Left to serve his term. He had previously
entrusted several million dollars with friends for safekeeping. He turned his
diamonds over to his wife, gave his silk shirt to a porter, and rode to prison
in a special train car reading Dante's Inferno.
While Remus was in jail, his wife Imogene took up with an extremely
handsome prohibition agent named Franklin Dodge. Dodge resigned from the Bureau
of Prohibition. Together, he and Imogene liquated Remus' assets and hid as much
money as possible. Some other things they did were trying to have Remus
deported, claiming his father had never become a citizen, trying to murder
George by offering a gang $15,000, after they sold the Fleischman Company they
gave George $100 as his share of the proceeds. After George was released from
Atlanta on November 2, 1925, Remus had to serve another sentence at Dayton,
Ohio.
Imogene proceeded to file for divorce in 1925 which George
contested with such vigor that it was 2 years in coming to trial. On October 6,
1927 the day the
divorce was to be finalized, on the way to court Remus had his chauffeur chase
the cab carrying Imogene and her daughter (from a previous marriage) through
Cincinnati, the cab was forced off the road at the entrance to Eden Park under
the Viaduct. Remus jumped out screaming and shot her in the abdomen while her daughter
tried to stop him, she died soon afterward. Remus went to the police station and
turned himself in.
Remus the expert criminal defender was now on trial for his life.
This trial made national headlines for a month, sharing front pages with Lindbergh's
flight to Paris. Remus pleaded temporary insanity, a novel approach at the time.
The prosecutor in the case was 30-year-old Charles Taft, son of former President
and then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, William Howard Taft. He was also the
brother of the future Senator of Ohio, Robert Taft.
Having long been the most generous man in town, he was very popular
in Cincinnati, and he so successfully vilified Imogene and her boyfriend Dodge
that the jury deliberated only 19 minutes before acquitting him by reason of
insanity. The courtroom exploded in jubilation. The state of Ohio then tried to
commit Remus to an insane asylum since he had been found insane, but prosecutors
were thwarted by their previous claim that he could be tried for murder because
he was not insane.
Remus was committed to the Lima State Hospital for the Criminal
Insane. Three months later the Allen County Court of Appeals declared him sane,
and he was released.
Remus tried to get back into bootlegging after his sentence, but soon retired when he
found that the market had been taken over by vicious, well-armed gangsters. He
moved to Covington, Kentucky and lived for another 20 years in relative
obscurity. He died in 1952.
Remus & his daughter
at his murder trial.
A little sidebar: Remus quite frequently stayed at the famous Seelbach Hotel in Louisville on business trips and for pleasure. While staying here he met another frequent visitor, F. Scott Fitzgerald and they became friends. Fitzgerald wrote his novel "The Great Gatsby" using Remus as his model for the title character Jay Gatsby.
