Oddsconsin...where we explore peculiar and sometimes mysterious features of Wisconsin’s human landscape.
All that remains of the Melchoir Brewery is the southeast corner of the building. There is no roof, nor any interior features. Three window openings with red brick arches peer out from the sandstone façade. To the left of the windows is half a doorway. Behind the building stand tall sandstone bluffs, into which caves were cut to provide a cool storage environment for the beer that was brewed here.
The Melchoir (or Melchior) Brewery ruins are located in the Village of Trempealeau, a small community on the southern edge of Trempealeau County, along the east bank of the Mississippi River. The brewery is on First Street, a few hundred feet southeast of Hastings Street.
Early photographs of the site show a hotel – no longer in existence – connected to the northwest side of the brewery building. The brewery was built in 1857 by Jacob Melchoir, a Prussian immigrant who moved to the area in the early 1850s. The hotel was added a few years after the brewery. Eventually, the brewery and hotel became one of the largest businesses in the area. When the facility was in use, hotel guests (beer steins in hand) would have had a view across the Mississippi River, toward Winona County, Minnesota, on the opposite bank.
The name Trempealeau (pronounced TREM-pe-loh) is thought to come from early French fur traders who called the area La montagne qui trempe a l'eau (the mountain that is steeped in the water). Trempealeau Mountain, part of Perrot State Park, is several miles northwest of the Village of Trempealeau, on the mouth of the Trempealeau River. The French name is thought to reflect the Sioux word Pah-hah-dak for mountain separated by water, or the Ho-Chunk word Hay-nee-ah-chah for soaking mountain.
When Melchoir moved to Trempealeau, it was primarily a French settlement, with a few log cabins and an economy depend on the fur trade. The brewery and hotel were built before the railroad came to the area. In the 1850s, before the Civil War, travel was mostly by river steamboats. Railroad development in Trempealeau County began in 1866 with the establishment of the Green Lake and Lake Pepin Railroad Company, which built a line from Merrillan, in Jackson County, to Whitehall, which became the Trempealeau county seat.
A plan to build a railroad line along the east bank of the Mississippi River, from La Crosse to Prescott, passing through what is now the Village of Trempealeau, was initiated in 1857 when the Wisconsin legislature granted a charter to the La Crosse, Trempealeau & Prescott Railroad Company. It took several decades for the plan to be realized, but by 1880, Melchoir beer was being shipped by rail to Minneapolis-St. Paul and elsewhere.
Melchoir died in 1881 and eventually the brewery ceased production. A contributing factor may have been the economic depression that began in the 1870s. Sometimes called the Long Depression, it was sparked by a wave of financial crises beginning in 1873 and extending to 1907.
Various factors contributed to the downturn, including sudden divestment in the railroads, a decline in gold reserves and widespread bank failures. In Wisconsin and other parts of the Midwest, the multi-decade depression was associated with a steep decline in prices of agricultural products, leading to farm failures and rural depopulation and decline. Some of the effects of this period are chronicled in Michael Lesy’s book, Wisconsin Death Trip, which focuses on nearby Jackson County.
The Melchoir Brewery continued to be used until the 1960s as a rooming house. Recent photographs show that the building has deteriorated quickly. While the land is privately owned, the building has been the victim of vandalism and visitors who ignore the no-trespassing signs to explore the tunnels.
While only a fragment of the brewery exists today, it is still possible to imagine something of its original architectural character. It remains one of the most significant historical sites in Trempealeau County, reflecting early European settlement of this area nearly 200 years ago.