Pearl Beer: The Iconic Texas Brand

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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Pearl Beer: The Iconic Texas Brand

Pearl Beer is an iconic Texas brand and landmark, second only to the Alamo itself. While Tex-Mex cuisine has proven to be universally popular, many don’t see as easily that Germans and Bohemians have made essential contributions to the culture of Texas too. Tex-Germ anyone?

The Pearl story begins at the founding of the City Brewery in 1883. German and Bohemian immigrants, missing their beloved lager, sought to make the beverage in their new home. Previous local brewers were only able to produce ale, possibly due to lager needing colder temperatures — not any easy trick to pull off in central Texas. In 1887, a group of local brewers formed the San Antonio Brewing Association at the City Brewery, and later that year, Pearl lager beer was filling bottles and wooden kegs, making many happy Germans.

Pearl Beer was soon beloved in San Antonio, and thanks to rail, was enjoyed throughout the Lone Star State, even though not all of Texas was “wet.” Counties, precincts, and towns could decide for themselves if they wanted alcoholic beverages in Local Option laws starting in 1891.

San Antonio Brewing Association employees in front of the original Pearl bottling building, early 1900s.
San Antonio Brewing Association employees in front of the original Pearl bottling building, early 1900s. Photo courtesy of Pearl LLC Archives.

In 1902, the colorful German immigrant Otto Koehler took control of the operations, made improvements to the facilities, hoping to get the beer beyond the Texas border. Following his death, Otto’s widow Emma Koehler oversaw the brewery surpassing rival Lone Star. With over 110,000 barrels produced per year, San Antonio Brewing Association became the largest beer maker in Texas.

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Alamo Foods’ ice cream contest. The contest would put the ice cream division out of business.
Alamo Foods’ ice cream contest. The contest would put the ice cream division out of business. Photo courtesy of Charlie Staats.

At the onset of national Prohibition in 1920, Otto’s widow Emma Koehler reorganized the brewery itself to make alternate beverages like soda, and products as diverse as dry cleaning and ice cream as a renamed Alamo Industries. In the decades following the repeal of Prohibition, San Antonio Brewing Association finally redubbed itself after its signature product — Pearl Brewing Company. Nephew Otto Koehler ran Pearl with the high standards of his namesake. Following his death, much of the German-immigrant spirit of this family business was lost. Waning sales and increased competition led to the company’s sale to Pabst in 1985. The out-of-state owner wasn’t able to maintain the Pearl brand, and neglected the beloved beer into oblivion. Or so sad Texans had feared…

The back of the Hotel Emma.
The back of the Hotel Emma. Photo courtesy of Jeremy Banas.

A local billionaire came to Pearl’s rescue in 2002, restoring the facilities, including the landmark brewhouse, now home to the trendy Hotel Emma, and Southerleigh Brewing in the original Pearl bottling building. Today, the 22-acre property west of downtown San Antonio is a popular destination for locals and tourists. Not surprising for a town famous for historic preservation.

Truly, it would be impossible to imagine San Antonio skyline without the 1894 brewhouse smokestack.

A view of the Pearl Brewhouse and the Hotel Emma from the Riverwalk extension.
A view of the Pearl Brewhouse and the Hotel Emma from the Riverwalk extension. Photo courtesy of Jeremy Banas.
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Pearl Beer book cover.

Bayous of Houston

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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Bayous of Houston

Houstonians laugh that there isn’t any topography there. They’ll joke that it’s flat, like a table top. In reality, Houston has some natural features — you just have to squint to see them. Most notably, Houston boasts nearly two dozen low and slow-moving natural waterways called bayous. Some are channelized with concrete banks, some are restored to their natural appearance, but all are vital to keeping the swampy coastal prairie called Bayou City free from flooding… mostly.

This photograph shows Buffalo Bayou, just east of Houston.
Buffalo Bayou is one of the longest bayous in the Houston area at 53 miles in length. This photograph shows Buffalo Bayou, just east of Houston. Photo courtesy of HCFCD.

On August 30, 1836, just months after Texas won its independence from Mexico, New York land speculators Augustus Allen and John Kirby Allen placed an advertisement in the local Telegraph and Texas Register bragging of their new “Town of Houston.”  Their description of the area was highly exaggerated, and filled with downright lies. The biggest boast was that Houston was “situated at the head of navigation,” where Buffalo Bayou and White Oak Bayou meet, and “at a point on the river which must ever command the trade of the largest and richest portion of Texas.”

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A photo showing a cotton barge.
In the South, the term “King Cotton” was used liberally, because ever since the first cotton plantation was established in Texas in 1822, cotton has been a dominant crop. The crop was shipped overland from across the state and then loaded into barges, such as the Jackson (pictured in this 1899 photograph), which moved down Buffalo Bayou and the Ship Channel to waiting steamers and then shipped to markets worldwide. Between 1854 and 1860, the volume of cotton shipped from Houston nearly tripled, and that trend continued into the next century. Photo courtesy of HCFCD.

A few months after their colorful ad, the Allen Brothers hired a captain to see if a commercial ship could, in fact, make it all the way from the Gulf of Mexico, through Galveston Bay, and up to Buffalo Bayou. In January of 1837, the packet steamer Laura arrived at Allen’s Landing, the foot of Main Street, proving that Houston could be a port city. Local commercial enterprise was limited to regional activity until the years following the Civil War. When the new railroad network connected Houston to the nation, lumber and cotton could be shipped efficiently from the wharves along the banks of Buffalo Bayou. Dredging and widening the channel kept Houston competitive with Galveston.  In the early 20th century, civic leaders would form the Houston Ship Channel, and made sure Houston received federal funds to build it. By 1914, the Ship Channel had been dredged to a depth of 25-feet, and today, it is a thriving, fifty-two-mile, 45-feet deep water port connecting Houston to the world.

An 1891 map of Houston.
An 1891 map of Houston. Photo courtesy of the author.

Buffalo Bayou remains Houston’s signature waterway. It meanders its way from neighboring Ft. Bend County, into the western edge of Houston, through its most posh residential neighborhoods, through Memorial Park, into Downtown, then splitting industrial Houston on opposite banks, and finally out to Galveston Bay, providing access to the Gulf of Mexico. 

A photo of the Buffalo Bayou Promenade.
The Buffalo Bayou Promenade is a 23-acre urban park situated along Buffalo Bayou near downtown Houston. The 1.2-mile long promenade links Buffalo Bayou Park to the west with Houston’s Theater District and the downtown area. Traditionally, development had turned its back on this portion of the bayou, which was littered with trash, debris, and silt. The promenade creates a linear park that takes what was once wasted space and transforms it into landscaped spaces with trails and walkways. The success of the park has spurred similar improvements along other parts of the bayous. Photo courtesy of HCFCD.
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The Bayous of Houston book cover.

Texas Boomtowns

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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Texas Boomtowns

When you think of Texas in the 19th century, you undoubtedly picture cowboys, Native Americans, and immigrants all fighting for survival on the Texas frontier. For iconic 20th century Texans, the oil-crazy wildcatter burst forward into the public conscious. After decades of acknowledging that crude oil was hiding underground, only occasionally bubbling up, but not having a great need for it, Texans saw the black gold explode onto the Texas landscape at the end of the 19th century.

On January 10, 1901, the first major oil well came in at Spindletop, down the road from Houston and south of Beaumont, marking the birth of the oil industry in Texas. The original Texas boomtown, it was home to a salt dome that produced 100,000 barrels per day, and instantly made Texas a major player in the modern petroleum industry.

A photo of standing room only at a well somewhere in southeast Texas.
Standing room only at a well somewhere in southeast Texas. Courtesy of the San Jacinto Museum, Houston Public Library.

When future Texaco Oil founder Joe Cullinan heard the news, he was already raking in money from oil under the salt domes around the central Texas town of Corsicana. Their major oil discovery a few years earlier would be dwarfed by the strike in the southeast corner of the state.

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Spindletop produced or enlarged companies such as Gulf Oil, Texaco, and Humble. Storage facilities, refineries, and oil field equipment companies grew quickly in nearby communities to take advantage of the prosperous oilfield. Houston would not be the Energy Capital of the World without the huge strike at Spindletop.

Desdemona was a busy place during the Eastland County boom.
Desdemona was a busy place during the Eastland County boom. Courtesy of the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Texas Postcards Collection.

Once Spindletop stopped gushing oil, the tent cities, con artists, chiselers, and prostitutes split. Beaumont got a lot less crowded, but still had a population double its pre-boom size. Now, oil derricks populated every corner of Texas, and new boomtowns exploded west of Fort Worth in 1918, and in Mexia, 100 miles south of Fort Worth, in 1913. In some cases, small communities like Desdemona benefited when the town banded together, hoping to strike it big. There was an anything-goes wildness to the day for Texans in oil country. Sadly, after all the oil was sucked up, many of these boomtowns went bust, leaving nothing behind.

Derricks and an expensive touring car, a symbol of oil prosperity at Ranger.
Derricks and an expensive touring car, a symbol of oil prosperity at Ranger. Courtesy of the DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Texas Postcards Collection.

With the arrival of the automobile, oil now had a market, which would drive all sorts of research into the technology needed to find it and extract it. Later on, newer uses for oil and petroleum-based projects would keep the wild speculation going.

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Texas Boomtowns book cover.

Keep Austin Dead: Tales of Haunted Austin

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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Keep Austin Dead: Tales of Haunted Austin

Austin is dead to me. Live Music Capital of the World? Sure, but it turns out, Austin, Texas is busting with gruesome tales of the dead, haunted sites, and plenty of ghost stories. The land itself may explain why so many spirits linger — Austin has beautiful, rocky hills and woodsy watering holes. Native tribes wandered through area, and designated many places as sacred. Spanish colonists arrived in the mid-1700s, but the Austin we know was born when the young Republic of Texas moved its capital from Houston to the sleepy Waterloo (redubbed “Austin” in honor of The Father of Texas Stephen F. Austin).

Antonia’s Leap

Mount Bonnell is perhaps the most impressive physical feature on the Austin landscape. As far back as the Spanish colonial era, the 780-foot bluff has been romanticized. In one of Texas’ most frequently-told tales, Antonia’s Leap persists to present day. The Spanish maiden Antonia was a colonist from a nearby San Antonio mission. A Comanche chief became enamored with Antonia, and kidnapped her, but Antonia’s finance came to the rescue. The Comanche warriors tracked them to Mount Bonnell and impaled the gallant Spanish paramour with 50 arrows. In her sorrow, Antonia leapt to her death.

Haunted back staircase.
Haunted back staircase. Courtesy of John Maverick.

Toughest Texan on Two-Wooden Legs Everyone loves pizza, right? Even ghosts of paraplegic Swedish immigrants? Ja! When Swen Beryman arrived in Galveston following a boat ride from Sweden in 1852, he took any job he could find on the Texas frontier. He settled outside of Austin. Following an excursion through sacred tribal land in the hills known as the Devil’s Backbone, Swen found himself trapped in a freak hail storm, and later lost both of his legs to frostbite. Ever the hard-working immigrant, Swen traded his farm for a general store in Oatmanville, where he got around on two wooden legs. Today, his Old Stone Storehouse is home to Austin Pizza Garden, and some patrons report hearing mysterious footsteps — perhaps from Swen’s own wooden legs.

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Most of the tombstones in the “colored green” did not survive through time, but the headstone of Rebecca, the mother of Mary Ramey, can still be found.
Most of the tombstones in the “colored green” did not survive through time, but the headstone of Rebecca, the mother of Mary Ramey, can still be found. Courtesy of John Maverick.

The 1885 Serial Killings

In 1884 and 1885, eight people were murdered, but no police record exists today of the horrific event in Texas history. The serial killer employed an ax, a knife, and long thin metal pin. The victims, 6 women, one man, and a girl, were never avenged. Austin would be forever changed by the ghastly acts. The community sought ways to catch the killer, and settled on moonlight towers to illuminate the neighborhoods at night. The sites are lost to the development of Downtown, but the imprint of the murdered souls is thought to remain.

“ANOTHER WOMAN MURDERED IN THE NIGHT BY SOME UNKNOWN ASSASSIN, BENT ON PLUNDER. ANOTHER NIGHT OF DEVILRY IN THE CRIMSON CATALOG OF CRIME”

— Austin Daily Statesman, May 8, 1885

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Haunted Austin book cover.

How to Stop a French Invasion: Tejano Patriots in Frontier Texas

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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How to Stop a French Invasion: Tejano Patriots in Frontier Texas

In the early decades of the 1700s, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, and England reached into all corners of the globe. While Spain arrived in the New World first, France and England soon followed and brought their centuries-long rivalries with them. France controlled lands in and around the Mississippi River, including the mouth at the Gulf of Mexico, and extended to the Red River to the west, where the Spanish state of la Provincia de Tejas began. But as the French and English colonies grew in size, Spanish King Philip V grew concerned that the French would creep further along the Gulf Coast into Spanish lands. In 1730, the monarch put out a call to his subjects, looking for volunteers to grow the colony in New Spain.

The Invitation

The Canary Islands are found 62 miles west of the African continent. Spain, the great sea power, colonized the islands by force, and fought the French and Dutch for control. The Spanish colony in present-day Texas had its share of missions, hoping to spread Christianity to the natives, and provide aid to early colonists on the lawless frontier. King Philip V invited Canary Island residents to emigrate to the small community in present-day San Antonio, Texas to deter French invasion. The king paid for travel expenses, and paid them more on arrival. The journey took the original 16 families across the Atlantic Ocean to Cuba, then on to Vera Cruz, Mexico, then up the Texas Coast, and on to San Antonio de Béxar, where the so-called Isleños would ultimately establish the first city government and permanent Spanish settlement.

The American Revolution

Mexicans’ participation in the American Revolution is well-documented, and the Canary Islands descendants played a part in defeating England. Possibly seeing a chance to reclaim French territory along the Mississippi River and the Floridas, Spain entered the fight against the British in 1779. From the Presidio de la Bahia, Louisiana Governor Bernardo de Gálvez ordered Texas cattle to be driven to the east to feed American troops on the front line — some of the local ranchers who supplied Gálvez were Canary Islanders.

Reverend Creséncio A. Rodríguez and Cristina C. Strasburger (second wife) and family.
Reverend Creséncio A. Rodríguez and Cristina C. Strasburger (second wife) and family. He was first married to Gertrudes Gortarí Gil in 1866. He was pastor of La Trinidad United Methodist Church in 1878–80 and then in 1882–84 with his second wife. Courtesy of Armandina Sifuentes.

The Texas Revolution

A tragic irony following the Texas Revolution, was that even though Texas was ethnically Spanish for a hundred years before the Battle of San Jacinto, and Anglo and Hispanic Texans won their independence from Mexico together, bitter resentment grew from memories of Santa Anna’s orders to leave no survivors at the mission in Goliad. Tejano service to Texas was ignored or hidden. Decades later, before the introduction of railroads, ox cart traders, or carreteros, served a vital service for the state by carrying good from the coastal port of Indianola to central San Antonio, but they were often hassled or worse by Anglos. Ethnic segregation persisted, and racists clashes between the two groups intensified and continued well into the late 20th century.

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Legacy

In contemporary San Antonio, the proud descendants of the Isleños formed the Canary Island Descendants Association to celebrate the original families courage and sacrifice with an annual events and advocacy programs. Several traced their family lines to the American Revolution — earning them membership in the prestigious group The Daughters of the American Revolution. They continue to ensure that the history of these pioneering Texans is protected.

Statue of Toríbio Losoya, defender of the Alamo, who died on March 6, 1836.
Statue of Toríbio Losoya, defender of the Alamo, who died on March 6, 1836. Courtesy of Armandina Sifuentes.
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Canary Islanders of San Antonio book cover.

How to Buy a Haunted Hotel

Yesterday's America Editorial Team
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How to Buy a Haunted Hotel

(No, we have no idea how to sell a haunted hotel, so stop asking us.)

Step 1.
Have a parent who was psychic. Maybe you don’t have your mother’s “gift,” but you’re open-minded, even curious about ghosts, spirits, and specters. Extra points if you are, in fact, a medium.

Step 2.

Develop your interest in the paranormal, like writing books on haunted Texas towns.

Step 3.

Decide that you and your spouse, as empty-nesters, need a hobby that would be fun yet challenging.

Step 4.

Find a realtor.

The Magnolia Hotel before restoration.
The Magnolia Hotel before restoration. Photograph by Llamar Vasquez of Llamar Vasquez Photography, Seguin, Texas.

Yes, it’s just that easy! Erin Wallace did all of this with her husband, and wrote a detailed account of their path to buying the historic (and haunted) Magnolia Hotel in Seguin, Texas. Being a thorough researcher, Wallace committed to finding as many stories from archives, county records, and family histories.

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The first version of the Magnolia Hotel was a simple, two-room cabin built by Texas Ranger James Campbell in 1840. Campbell was the law in Seguin, and included a basement that he used as a jail. Soon afterwards, Comanches murdered and dumped him in a shallow grave.

The Indian raid shelter.
The Indian raid shelter. Photograph by author.

Joseph Johnson bought the cabin and converted it into a stagecoach station. His addition included a limecrete structure with only three rooms, and was dubbed the Magnolia Hotel. This is allegedly home to the spirits of a fortune teller, a servant, and a cowboy who took his own life.

In 1850, the next owners added a 10-room structure, becoming the hotel as it is known today.  Fancy for the frontier, the hotel witnessed an Indian raid in 1855. Campbell’s old subterranean jail made do as a hideout for scared guests. The hotel saw its share of prostitutes, Texas Rangers, and traveling salesmen — at least one is known to have committed suicide there.

The Magnolia Hotel’s spookiest tale comes from the axe murder of twelve-year-old Emma Voelcker in 1874. The authorities prosecuted family friend Wilheim Faust who was staying in the hotel. Faust was convicted, and unburdened himself by confessing to two other murders. The murderer was later assassinated by an unknown assailant. Was it a conspiracy?

After the endangered landmark was rescued by Erin Wallace and Jim Ghedi in 2013, they commenced restoration, but were constantly disrupted by paranormal activities. Apparently, ghosts hate remodeling too.

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Mysteries of the Magnolia Hotel book cover.
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