Fitger's Brewing Company

The Fitger's Brewing Company brewed beer from 1881 to 1972 in Duluth, Minnesota. Some of its buildings are still being used today as a brewpub, hotel, restaurants, and retail stores.The brewery was located at 600 East Superior Street, on Lake Superior in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The complex included ten buildings including the garage/stable, which was built in 1911. Over the life of the company this building housed the horses and vehicle used to deliver the brewery's product.HistoryThe beginningA nationwide financial crisis, the Panic of 1857, had caused most of the Duluth's early pioneers to leave. A history of Duluth written in 1910 relates, "Of the handful remaining in 1859 four men were unemployed and one of those was a brewer. Capital idea; build a brewery. The absence of malt and hops and barley did not at all embarrass those stout-hearted settlers." The men rented property on a stream that emptied into Lake Superior and owned by Sidney Luce. The stream became known as Brewery Creek, as it still is today. While the original brewery “was not a pecuniary success”, a few decades later it was to become the Fitger Brewing Company.The original brewery was purchased in 1881 by Michael Fink, who decided to build a larger brewery a block and a half away and down the stream on Superior Street. Construction of the new building began September 19, 1881, and was completed the next year. Dubbed Fink's Lake Superior Brewery, it included offices, sleeping quarters for employees, brewing facilities, and its own drinking establishment, the Brewery Saloon. Lake Superior Brewery sold its first beer in August 1882. The brewery was very successful from the beginning and sold beer as far west as Aitkin, Minnesota, and as far east as Thunder Bay, Ontario.