Table of Contents
Myths and Rumors
Few locations anywhere have more urban legends surrounding them than the Lemp brewery, the Lemp mansion and the Lemp/Cherokee Cave which lies below them. A lot of the stories are complete and utter nonsense. Some are true. In no particular order, I am going to directly address some of the more persistent rumors below.
1. First and foremost: There is no access to the cave from any of the neighboring buildings. Anyone who insists otherwise, because their drunk uncle told them something dumb like the Irish Corner Pub connects to the cave via a tunnel in the basement, are simply wrong. Yes, the Corner Pub has a coal chute or something in the basement but it doesn't go anywhere and it's definitely not into the cave. This is not to say that some of Lemp's neighbors don't have interesting basements of their own and maybe even their own caves; At least one other business nearby, the Cherokee Brewery (now Earthbound), definitely had some sort of cave/spring/quarry beneath it and tours of their underground are occasionally made available. Earthbound and the people who run it are awesome and the tour is the kind of thing we always wished would happen with a place like the Cherokee Brewery. Because it's FINALLY once again being used to make the very thing it was put on this earth to produce: BEER. But I digress. The Lemp/Cherokee Cave is an easily navigable formerly commercial underground space. The entirety of the cave, along with all of its nooks and crannies, can be thoroughly explored in like a couple hours, tops. From inside an underground space like this, it's incredibly easy to find all the possible entrances/exits. The MSS and others before them already mapped this thing out many decades ago. All possible entrances have been documented. There is simply no secret/forgotten entrance to Lemp/Cherokee in any neighboring basement. If you think you know of one, well it's not connected to Lemp. Having said that: Get in touch with me and let's go explore it, whatever it is!
2. Yes, the cave has a theater and a "pool" (or two) in it. If it had any other attractions in it, such as a bowling alley, they have been lost to time and no evidence remains. What kind of pools these were is up for debate, but remnants of piping does seem to indicate that they likely had routed steam into the cave to heat at least one of the two pools. I would not be surprised if one was a heated pool and the other was not heated. After all, the Lemp's had the money to make anything happen; They installed a spiral staircase to their underground theater complete with electricity, for example. A heated pool is not so far fetched.
3. The haunted house never went into the cave-not the 90s iteration nor the current one. Yes, they currently CLAIM to take patrons into the cave in their advertisements. But those claims are completely false. It would be reckless and stupid (and not up to code) to allow a haunted house to operate in a cave. The haunted house is mostly located in the original Brew House and the cellars and sub-cellars below it. Their boundary ends just outside and around the corner from the cave.
4. Did the Lemp Mansion ever connect to the cave? Lots of people have theorized that the room behind the bar in the basement of the Lemp mansion has a door which leads to a tunnel that goes to the cave. But after having been behind that door, I'd say that theory is probably wrong, at least about that particular spot being a former entrance. I can say with certainty that the Lemp Mansion has no *current* connection to the cave. All of the experts will tell you that it *never* did. And I used to agree. But after having made various discoveries over the years, I'm no longer confident either way. I have become confident, however, that such a connection, once upon a long ago time, is very much "Plausible". The following link contains all relevant research and discoveries pertaining to the theory of the Lemp Mansion Cave Connection. I challenge anyone to refute the facts presented therein.
...Well AKSHUALLY
I want to preface the following by saying that the recent STL Magazine articles by Chris Naffziger are among the best online source of information on all things Lemp. I respect the level of research, dedication and detail that has gone into.. most.. of those articles. The only reason I am "picking on" this author in particular is because most of the other garbage people have published online about Lemp isn't even worthy of my time. Most of that stuff can be safely ignored. In contrast, I repect his work enough to give it my time and attention. So when I found obvious mistakes in those articles, they were bright glaring intrusions, standing in stark opposition to the well-researched and cold hard facts that these articles are otherwise known for. And, frustratingly, none of those articles allow comments! My blog allows comments (on each main post, but unfortunately not on "pages" which is what this is) and because I like truth and transparency, I encourage anyone to challenge or correct anything I have written. Head to the comments section on the main page and fact-check anything I've posted. You won't find any errors in my work, but if you magically find some then I encourage you to be as mean and insulting to me personally as you wish. The below referenced author(s) are especially invited to take their revenge upon my character via stinging rebuttals in the comment section on the main page.
NOTE: All sources referenced on this page are listed under the Bibilography heading below.
Who really designed the Lemp Brewery’s buildings?
That's a good question. This article in particular stands out because it is.. well.. almost entirely spurious. Check it out here: Who really designed the Lemp Brewery’s buildings?.
The referenced article makes a variety of curious statements that don't hold up to scrutiny, but I'll start off with the topic of Lemp's refrigerating machines because I specifically researched this subject for my own article on Lemp and I happened to have numerous historic sources readily available (cited below) with which to confidently refute any claims to the contrary. Specifically, in this and other articles, the author credits the wrong person/company for a variety of things including the refrigerating machines shown in the 1893 Souvenir Booklet. Yes, I realize how much of a nerd I must be for being bothered by this but.. Let's check some facts!
The gallery of refrigerating machines portrayed in the 1893 Lemp Souvenir booklet, which the author included in the above article were, without any doubt, the iconic 110-220 ton De La Vergne machines. They were absolutely not Krausch Refrigerating Machines. While Krausch did install the first refrigerating machines used in the Lemp Brewery (in ~1877 or '78), his machines were borderline "experimental" at that point, described as being "small and of faulty construction" [III] and of comparatively low capacity (initially capable of 15-tons each but later improved to 45-tons) besides being physically much too small to be those portrayed in the Souvenir booklet. Documentation shows that Krausch's machines were in service at Lemp for only the 10 years from ~1877 (or '78) until 1888: By 1888 Lemp had installed two massive 110-ton De La Vergne machines (which physically match those depicted in the booklet) [IV]. Those TWO De La Vergne machines supplanted the capacity of ALL TEN of the comparatively diminutive Krausch machines which had been installed by that time. And only one year later, in 1889, Lemp placed another order with De La Vergne for an additional 110-ton machine [IV]. The De La Vergne machines were in place four years prior to the October 1893 World's Columbian Exposition for which the Souvenir booklet was made. Another publication, notably also from 1893 [VIII], features a description of the Lemp brewery and contains the following line: "One of the newly-erected buildings contains five of the most modern refrigerating machines and an electric light plant". This description is referring to the 5 De La Vergne machines known to be installed at Lemp. Take a closer look at the Souvenir booklet and you'll see five machines. Three of them are arranged together in a row (these 3 being from the original 1888/1889 purchase) and two identical machines (which were installed shortly before 1893) are spaced further apart and off to the sides. This arrangement, by the way, matches the two known photographs of this room which I have included on the main page (under the Historic Photos/Power Plant headings), and it matches the description/layout shown on the 1909 sanborn map, thus leaving no doubt as to what machines those were. It's not up for debate and there is no uncertainty; It was De La Vergne whose machines were depicted in that booklet. Not Krausch.
Another problem with that same article is the suggestion that Krausch designed Lemp's buildings (and that Jungenfeld, et al., did not). I myself haven't been able to find a single contemporary source from the time which credits Krausch as an architect on any Lemp building -let alone all of them! The article referenced above is unusually light on source citations but a separate article from the same author cites a Western Brewer magazine from 1885 crediting Krausch with being the architect/engineer on the 1885 brew house. That is a very cool nugget of historical documentation, but there's simply no logical reason to jump to the conclusion that Krausch designed anything else at the Lemp brewery. The period of interest for my own Lemp article is the 20th century, so I haven't spent considerable time researching 19th century architects, but what I have seen does not, at all, support the idea that Krausch was involved. On the rare occasion that an architect was mentioned in newspapers and journals of the time, all of the contemporary 19th century sources which I've found credit the same group of architects: E. Jungenfeld & Co (later known as Widmann, Walsh & Boisselier). Part of the difficulty in researching this is that most construction news published then simply didn't credit architects. And when they were credited, the names of these architects were often misspelled. I've incidentally located several references to them regardless -mostly by accident. In 1897 [V], it was reported that Lemp commissioned "E. Jungenfield" (sic) as architects for "Lemp's Hall", a photo of which appears on one of the postcards. Lemp's Hall used to stand in Lemp's park (now Cherokee park). Next, it is a well-known fact that Widmann & Walsh designed the Bottling Department which was constructed in 1901 [VIII]. In 1902 [VI], Lemp joined up with Adolphus Busch and Albert Ruemmeli to form the Oklahoma Ice and Brewing Company and this team commissioned "Whitman, Walsh and Boisselier" (sic) as architects. In 1903 [VII], Lemp commissioned Widmann, Walsh & Boisselier to design a new "machine shop and ice factory" in Saint Louis with structural material provided by the Banner Iron Works. Furthermore, the Landmarks Association of Saint Louis is said to have a specific Widmann, Walsh & Boisselier collection which contains, and I quote: "the original Lemp Brewery architectural drawings, which use several different formats including blueprints, linen, and tissue paper". So if anyone wants to determine who the early architects were, it seems the Landmarks Association would be a good place to start. Personally, I'm more interested in the brewery as it stands today, which was mostly constructed in the 20th century. Either way, once Guy T. Norton joined Lemp in 1903, virtually everything Lemp constructed (in nearly every city Lemp had something built [and there were a lot]) was prominently credited to Norton as architect. Norton was by no means a "lost architect" as another of the STL Magazine articles strangely claim, considering that every single publication which reported on brewery news of the early 1900s and who included credit to an architect, credited Norton as the architect on these buildings. One needs not look very hard to find the numerous references to Norton in all the various publications of the early 20th century. Guy T. Norton was in fact one of the core Lemp personnel on hand at the brewery for about 2 decades! He was an integral part of the business from 1903 until the very end, even after prohibition. He was personally on-site and was even one of the first on the scene on the very day that William J. Lemp Jr took his own life.
Theodore Krausch was absolutely not "the man who revolutionized the way Americans consume beer. And cheese. And anything else that needs to be kept cold.", as he is also erroneously credited in that above linked article. There's a recurring theme here; The author of these articles seems to have developed some sort of borderline obsession with Krausch which permeated, and subsequently tainted the quality of all of the following articles in the Lemp series that were published via STL Magazine. The truth is, according to contemporary sources, Krausch was simply one of many engineers at the time dilligently working in an increasingly crowded market to improve the art of artificial refrigeration; Every brewery, beverage, ice and/or refrigeration publication in the late 1800s to early 1900s is full of advertisements for artificial refrigeration machines made by larger and more refined outfits who were competing for market share (Frick, De La Vergne and countless others). I've only encountered a small handful of advertisements for Krausch among them. This is because he was, comparatively, a little fish in a big pond; The first refrigeration machine was developed 40 years before Krausch, in 1835, and an improved version was produced in 1860 (per numerous googleable sources). The first machine was installed in a brewery in the US almost ten years prior to Krausch and by 1872, their improved version made 5-tons of ice per day! [I]. Krausch could indeed be considered a pioneer and while he was one of the earliest to the Saint Louis market, it was another Saint Louisan, John Ring who was actually spearheading artificial refrigeration in Saint Louis by 1870 and who held numerous patents in this regard well before Krausch even entered the scene [II].
Last but not least, there's the closing statement of the above referenced article: "While it surely played a role, by no means should we consider our underground caves critical to the development of brewing in St. Louis". This statement is truly flabbergasting. And I apologize for using such foul language. But the (mostly Lost) Caves of Saint Louis are widely regarded by everyone who has researched this topic as being of particular criticality to early brewers such as Lemp, whose lager beer specifically required long periods of cold storage afforded by the constant temperature found in the caves which were discovered by early settlers of Saint Louis prior to the advent of artificial refrigeration. I cannot fathom what would compel such a contrarian's take on something so well-established, thereby rendering that statement so easily found to be, well, false.
Maybe that whole article was written as a prank. Maybe the first person to correct it wins a prize for being the biggest Lemp obsessed nerd. Did I win?! Either way, it is truly a baffling piece of work which has left me scratching my head for the years that have lapsed since it was published, especially because the author is a respected historian who is paid to do this and who is otherwise so damn good at digging deep into facts and providing the data and sources to back them up. At any rate, this is not to be taken as a personal insult or attack against the author. As I believe I made clear above, I highly respect most of the rest of his work. I'm just a nerd and I'm here to spit facts.
A never-before published panoramic view of the Lemp brewery buildings before their demolition
The only other STL Magazine article from the same author which I will nitpick here highlights an incredibly rare original photograph. Counter to what that article claims, however, that "never-before-published" photograph.. was actually one of the most widely published Lemp photographs of all time as part of the popular Lemp postcard series. The postcard series was, as far as I can tell, the first collection of photographs of the Lemp Brewery ever published (in ~1905). Now that an original has surfaced I have to wonder if any other original Lemp photos might exist hoarded away in some other private collection, instead of a museum where they obviously belong. It is kind of infuriating to me that some random collector is hoarding a piece of history like that. That's how priceless artifacts get lost and destroyed. And while that is an informative article, it is otherwise tarnished by the multiple unnecessary references to Krausch sprinkled throughout; The last building referenced in that article, for example, is the ice plant which the author "strongly believes" was a Krausch design when, as I referenced above, it was commissioned in 1903 and designed by Widmann, Walsh & Boisselier. Again, I simply do not understand the author's obsession with crediting everything to Krausch. Was the author trying to create an underdog superhero story out of Krausch? I'm not sure. And since the articles don't allow comments, I've resorted to doing this.
A snapshot from a 1950 Cherokee Cave tour, a guided journey '65 to 85 feet below the city streets'
Another spurious STLMAG article really grinds my gears, but this one was written by Stefene Russell and contains a fantastic image of a cave which they claim to be Cherokee Cave.
I have no idea what compelled this person to think that this was Cherokee Cave, but this is NOT CHEROKEE (or Lemp) CAVE. I actually dug into it a while back and was fairly certain I found what cave it was (or at least what area of the state it was in), but I have since lost my notes and I really don't care enough to spend the time to once again try to find the actual cave just to correct this article. All you have to do is spend (way too much) time researching the photographer, RUSSELL FROELICH, and eventually you'll find some obscure references that indicated he had at one point photographed a cave somewhere. It wasn't Cherokee Cave, though, and I just needed to get that off of my chest. Maybe one day I'll get really bored and dig into this photo once again. If you believe this was Cherokee (Lemp) Cave, just because some random person with publishing access within STL Magazine says so, then, as the saying goes, I've got a bridge to sell you.
St. Louis caves—and the breweries that loved them
I want to preface this one by, again, saying that the only reason I'm "picking on" this author is because they have so much quality content out there that they are worthy of your time. Most other articles on the internet that have covered these topics are poorly researched, generally mostly inaccurate and a complete waste of time. Unseen St Louis is a great resource full of detailed, well-researched, articles pertaining to the history of Saint Louis and I recommend everything else they have written. But this article by Unseen St Louis stands out among their other work by being unnecessarily riddled with click-baity exaggerations by someone who is, in this case, clearly rephrasing second-hand information.
One of this article's opening lines states that "underneath much of downtown is a network of caves and tunnels". This is an irresponsibly bad exaggeration and is in no way accurate in the 21st century. It would have been a stretch even in the 19th century when our "caves and tunnels" were at their most plentiful. For starters: using the word "network" implies that "much of downtown"'s caves and tunnels are somehow connected. If we're talking about sewage tunnels, aka sewers, then yes those are connected... as are all sewers everywhere. There also are some small, utterly boring, steam tunnels (not connected to each other) scattered here and there, too, I suppose. But there's nothing particularly interesting in that regard either. Sewers and steam tunnels are not unique to Saint Louis! And as someone who has explored underground in Saint Louis and elsewhere, STL has some of the most boring, small, disconnected bits of underground in any city I've explored! If we exclude sewers and small boring steam tunnels (which can be found in every city), then everything else about that quoted statement is simply false. The vast majority of caves were utterly destroyed by the original breweries who dug them out and expanded them to create otherwise unrecognizable brick arched cellars which were to them far more convenient and useful than a rough, small, irregularly shaped and sometimes difficult to access cave. And then prohibition happened. Most of those breweries went out of business, their buildings were demolished and the resultant debris was conveniently used as fill to prevent those cellars from collapsing in the future. Few exceptions were made. Of those few, some were incorporated into the city's sewer department which was greatly expanded in the years since and those exceptions are now at any given time filled with sewage. Of the remaining small handful whose fates were.. sort of.. spared from the aforementioned destruction, we are left with simply a small collection of entirely separate brick arched rooms underground at various locations which are difficult to access, which have only one entrance, thus they can be (easily) permanently sealed and which are themselves rather "unremarkable" in appearance. There is decidedly no "network" of caves and tunnels underneath "much of downtown" and such statements undermine one's credibility not to mention do a disservice to the actual history under our feet.
"The city built on swiss cheese" is an even more offensively and utterly false exaggeration to a nerd like me whose author, with all due respect, clearly lacks first-hand knowledge of this topic. For example: allow me to introduce you to Minneapolis. THAT is a city built on "swiss cheese". Even in a regional competition, the relatively nearby Kansas City has significantly more underground than Saint Louis has. I would also rate Chicago higher than Saint Louis, in terms of cities with underground locations of interest. You really have to have near-zero experience inside or outside of Saint Louis to make such an exaggerated "swiss-cheese" statement. In my opinion (based on actual first-hand experience spanning over ~20 years): With the exception of the Lemp Brewery and English Cave, Saint Louis' underground is barely notable. And I say that as someone who loves Saint Louis.
Why do I care about this otherwise mostly factual article containing some silly hyperbole?
Because if you are a steward of history and want to maintain credibility then you should be more conscientious about which words you choose to fluff up your articles with. Stick to the facts, man! Articles like this get passed around and inspire people to seek out the topics which were advertised to them through overly imagintive and careless exaggerations. People become convinced that there's "networks" of "caves and tunnels" "under much of downtown" who inevitably go and try to access them. After all, "if there's so much down there, why aren't there any photos of it?" we ask ourselves as we decide that "it is we who shall discover them!". I speak from experience and from witnessing others following the same path. In so doing, early on, one of my comrades narrowly avoided death/serious injury and I was nearly stuck underground with him because we rushed off in search of one of those locations. It took me 4 hours and every ounce of our strength, and some creative use of thin yellow nylon ropes (which are still down there) to get him out of there. After spending countless hours researching and exploring this particular topic over the years, the rewards of our labor have been incredibly minimal. The payout is not worth the time/effort except to the most obsessed history nerds among us. If you are seriously devoted to the research and to trudging through sewers and dangerous underground passageways and you are adquately prepared with safety equipment and the ability to rescue yourself if needed, then more power to you. But most people who didn't otherwise know about such locations until they read a click-baity headline on the internet are more likely to not be prepared going in and will therefore likely get themselves and/or others hurt or worse. What I'm getting at is that it's irresponsible to advertise dangerous locations to the public using descriptions that are false/exaggerated.
Conclusion
The problem with the internet is anyone can say anything they want and people will just believe them and spread things that just aren't true. If you're in the business of publishing history articles and giving lectures about real places and real events, then you should be held to, and hold yourself up to, a higher standard. Stick to the facts. Avoid embellishments and personal bias. Especially if you receive payment for doing those things. I do this for free out of my own interest, investing my own time and energy into it, and even I won't resort to such credibility tarnishing acts of careless wordsmithing.
Bibliography
{I}: "One Hundred Years of Brewing", H.S. Rich & Co. 1903; {II}: & {III}: Ice and Refrigeration, August, 1901; {IV}: De La Vergne Customer Catalogue, 1890; {V}: The American Architect and Building News Vol LVII, 1897; {VI}: The Builder Vol X No. 17, 1903; {VII}: Manufacturers' Record, April 17, 1902; {VIII}: Missouri at the World's Fair, 1893.
