On a personal level, the Lemp Family did not have a good start to the 20th century. Frederick Lemp, William Lemp Sr.’s favorite son, died in 1901. His daughter, Frederick Lemp Sr., would be left behind. She later got into a legal dispute with her aunts and uncles about their inheritance from the brewery.
In 1904, William Sr. would commit suicide. Although the media attributed it to a temporary aberration of the brain, his family and business associates believe it was due to the death of his son and Gustav Pabst, his friend, and fellow brewer. William “Billy” Lemp Jr. assumed the leadership of the brewery. He did not allow the family business to fall into depression. Within a year of his father’s tragic passing, Guy Tyler Norton became the brewery’s architect and began a major modernization campaign.
The Lemp Brewery’s grain storage systems were upgraded in a dramatic move. William Sr. built a Mansard-roofed grain lift south of the Malt House in the 19th Century. This building, which is easily the most low-quality of the Lemp Brewery properties, has a wood frame that stands out among brick and stone. It was clear that it was time for a new grain elevator to be built by the Lemp Brewery in 1905. Lemp Brewery received its first permit in 1905 for foundations. It cost $12,000. An article in American Brewers Review stated that the excavation hole was dug until “solid ground” was reached. This is likely due to the limestone karst topography around the brewery.
Construction of the foundations appears to have been quick as the city issued a building permit for the 5-story grain elevator in 1905 at a cost estimated at $50,000. The building permit names Barnett & Record as the architects of the innovative grain silos. However, Norton appears to have worked with Norton on the stylistic consistency so that the new elevator could be matched with other Renaissance Revival and Rundbogenstil brewery structures. Reinforced concrete is another material that would be dominant in the construction of the remaining buildings on the property. The American Brewers Review, as well as Sanborn Fire Insurance maps, confirm that reinforced concrete is the load-bearing material. However, the exterior walls of the buildings remain covered with red brick. Each silo is 92 feet high and has a 25-foot exterior diameter. The innovation of Barnett & Record’s Grain Elevators is made up of the space between the 18 circular main silos. Each of these voids was then converted into silos to maximize storage capacity. The historic photograph also shows that the original elevator tower was shorter. According to a July 16, 1910 building permit, the taller penthouse featuring the “LEMP” letters was built later by Norton and his staff for $5,300.
Underground networks were also an important feature of the elevator. The hoppers were located on the east side of this building. These hoppers allowed train cars to be deposited directly into the basement. The elevator had separate conveyor belts for malt and barley, and each had its hoppers. The Lemps built a tunnel underneath the rail yard to access the main malting facility, as the silos could no longer be found to the south of their malt house. I was able, after contacting Dearborn’s Henry Ford Museum, to identify the locomotive parked in front of the grain elevator. It was a Baldwin 0-4-0, which was built in Philadelphia. This engine would have been used to push grain cars around the rail yard, as it was part of a short-line railroad owned by Lemp Brewery.
Another reason Billy Lemp needed a new grain elevator was obvious. It was opened in 1905. He would then order Norton to design a massive new structure, the New Fermenting Department/House. It was built on the same footprint as the old grain elevator. The new building was described as a 7-story, fireproof fermenting house in the September 5, 1906 building permit. It cost $110,000. Hartmann Bricklaying and Construction is the name of the contractor listed on the building permit for the first time. Like many other brewer-related architects, the Gilsonite Construction Company also participated in its construction.
The American Brewers’ Review provides a detailed description of the building. It explains the enormous loads that the reinforced concrete structure can support when all its fermenting vats are filled with freshly brewed beer. They claim the reinforced concrete structure is capable of supporting 600 to 1,200 pounds per square foot. When fully loaded, the floor plates deflected 3/8 inch. This means that reinforced concrete was less than half an indentation when all of Lemp’s beer was placed on it. This enormous weight was the topic of an entire article in American Brewers Review. It also featured images of the architect, masons, and other contractors standing in front of a load of pig iron. The white ornament was provided by Winckle Terracotta Company, while the Hydraulic Pressed Brick Company supplied bricks that face this enormous concrete structure.
The New Fermenting house’s impressive height is not the only thing that’s noteworthy about it. It’s also quite shallow below the ground. The basement is only one-story. By this time refrigeration was so advanced that it didn’t need to penetrate the bedrock as far as the old lagering house. As one newspaper article about the story of a Lemp employee reveals, some older, deeper cellars had begun to disappear. Although the exact location of the incident is not known, the article describes how the young man fell through a grate into an abandoned cellar for lagering and broke both his legs. He was unable to call for help with his cries. He was attacked by giant rats for almost an entire day and was finally found by his coworkers just before he was nearly “driven mad”.
The worker was eventually brought to the surface. If he were alive today, he would recognize two buildings on the Lemp property that had been modified the least: the grain elevator and New Fermenting Department. Both of these buildings still have their original Lemp names in white Terra-cotta brick and, in the case of the latter, their perfectly preserved terracotta company shield logos. The exteriors of many other buildings on the property were severely altered by the International Shoe Company. Windows were punched into their elegant facades. These two brick and brewery monuments are what remains of Norton’s work and the skillful craftsmen who made his designs come to life.
