Weinhard Brewery Complex facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Weinhard Brewery Complex
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The main brewhouse, viewed from
the southeast in 2002 |
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 Location in Portland, Oregon
Location in Oregon
Location in the United States
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| Location | Portland, Oregon |
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| Built | 1908 |
| Architect | Whidden & Lewis |
| Architectural style | Romanesque |
| NRHP reference No. | 00001018 |
| Added to NRHP | August 23, 2000 |
The Henry Weinhard Brewery complex is a historic group of buildings in Portland, Oregon. It was once a very busy place where drinks were made. People also call it the Cellar Building and Brewhouse or Henry Weinhard's City Brewery. Since the year 2000, these buildings have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This means they are important historical sites. Around the same time, work began to turn the area into a new neighborhood called the Brewery Blocks. This new area has offices, shops, and homes.
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What Does the Brewery Look Like?
The main building, called the Brewhouse, was designed by famous architects named Whidden & Lewis. They were pioneers in Portland's building design. The building looks like it came from the medieval period in Tuscany, Italy. It was finished in 1908. Other businesses in the area liked the design so much that they copied it for their own buildings.
The Brewhouse is six floors tall at its highest point. It actually looks like one big building but is made of two parts. One part is the Brewhouse itself, on the north side. The other part is the Malt and Hop Building, which faces Burnside Street.
A Look Back: The Brewery's History
The story of this brewery began in 1864. That's when Henry Weinhard bought an existing brewery called the City Brewery. He moved his business to this new location on West Burnside Street. His business grew very quickly. Between 1865 and 1872, he bought two more blocks of land to the north.
Many breweries back then also owned the places that sold their drinks. Henry Weinhard built a huge business empire. It owned properties all over the Northwest, from San Francisco to Canada. His brewing business kept getting bigger. He even offered to pipe drinks directly to the Skidmore Fountain in Portland. However, city leaders said no to this idea. By 1890, the brewery was making 100,000 barrels of drinks every year.
How the Brewery Survived Tough Times
The buildings you see today were finished in 1908. They were built to help the Henry Weinhard business make even more drinks. At this time, they were selling drinks across the Pacific Northwest and even in the Philippines and China.
Later, a time called Prohibition started. During Prohibition, it was not allowed to make or sell many types of drinks. The brewery found a way to survive this period. They started making "near-beer," which had very little alcohol. They also made syrups and sodas, like root beer. They even became a local company that bottled national brands of soft drinks. Their vanilla cream and other syrup products were sold as "Gourmet Elixirs."
Over the years, the brewery joined with or was sold to other companies. It merged with a company called Portland Brewing. This is how the "Blitz" name became part of the brewery's official name. Arnold Blitz, who owned Portland Brewing, became the leader of the new Blitz-Weinhard company. It took this new company 20 years to update the brewery and recover after Prohibition ended in 1933.
In 1979, the Blitz-Weinhard company was sold to the Pabst Brewing Company.
What Happened to the Brewery Buildings?
In early 2000, a local development company bought the entire brewery complex. By then, it covered five city blocks. This company decided to create a new area with offices, shops, and apartment buildings. They called this new area the Brewery Blocks.
As part of this project, the old, important buildings were saved and made part of the new development. The Brewhouse was recognized for its historical importance. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in August 2000. This happened a year after the brewery stopped making drinks.
The renovated Brewhouse was finished in November 2002. It took two years of big renovations to complete. The west side of the Brewhouse was turned into Brewery Tower, an office building. The upper floors of the historic buildings are now office spaces. The first floors have shops and restaurants. The building even received a special award called LEED certification. This means it was designed to be very good for the environment.
