George Guenther Jr. Brewing Co.

Another months old set I have been too lazy to post. I remember driving around this neighborhood at night after leaving a bar and noticing that a door on the loading dock appeared to be wide open. I shined my car headlights at the door and could indeed see it was open or missing. 2 days later we came here early on a Sunday and scoped out the place. Last time I had been inside was spring of 2009. After that it got sealed up because of all the graffiti appearing inside. I hadn't seen too many pictures from it since then. There were 2 ways to get in but one involved climbing a fence out in the open which the 2 police cars parked on the lot could easily see. The other was walking right into that open loading dock. The problem with the loading dock was the security cameras one the building next door aimed right at it. Being that it is all part of the same property it was safe to assume those cameras watched this building as well. After walking around for a while and running into another random guy taking photos early in the morning we decided the loading dock was still the best option. So we briskly walked up the stairs and across the ramp and into the darkness past the door. We went through the new side into the old side and as far up as we could go so we could see if anyone else was around from that vantage point. Everything was fine and we explored the entire building. When we went to leave we noticed the entrance we had came in was a lot darker than before. Seems at some point after we entered someone had came behind us and shut the door on us. I'm not sure if they knew we were inside or if someone had just noticed it was open and shut it. Either way we were a little sketched out. We decided the fastest option would be to jump out of the back of the building where they had smashed the wall down to get the bottling line equipment out. So we ended up jumping out of the building about 8ft to the ground and then jumping over 2 more fences and quickly into our cars for escape. I ended up driving around the neighborhood and past the loading dock and not only was the door closed but a sign and a cart and other junk had been pushed in front of it. Seems to me that would mean they were trying to keep someone trapped inside.

I talked to someone later on who said he had been working here but he did not specify why. I believe he was probably one of the people using the flood lights. I highly suspect they may start to rehab or demolish parts of this building soon.

This brewery was built around the turn of the century and made beer until the late 1970s. At it's peak in the 1950s it was the best selling beer in the city and was huge sponsor of the local sports teams. A change of owners and name in the early 1960s left it abandoned by the locals for other hometown brews. 3 years later the name was switched back but the damage to the reputation was too much and they never rebounded. Now this sits as the best known and most intact (hard to believe) relic of the city's brewing past.

This was the first place I ever explored so despite being kind of barren I still like it a lot.

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28. Notice the red wire at the bottom of the photo. In the back there were flood lights with this red extension cord going from all the way outside of the building to way in the back. I know someone was in here recently to assess something...