Overview

The brewing company known as the "North Pacific Brewery" operated from about 1865 until Prohibition began in WA State in 1916. It occupied at least two locations, the first on the southwest corner of Front Street and Columbia Street, the second on the shore of Lake Union.

Building History

On 02/01/1865, the German brewer Martin Schmieg and his first partner, Joseph Butterfield, founded the North Pacific Brewery. Butterfield sold out his shares to Schmieg in the early years of the 1870s, and, by 1872, Schmieg had come to own the facility with a second collaborator, Amos Brown. (See The Puget Sound Directory and Guide to Washington Territory, 1872, [Olympia, WA: Murphy and Harned, 1872], n.p.) Brown's family lived on the second floor of the brewery at this time, according to an annotation on a North Pacific Brewery photograph held at the University of Washington's Special Collections Division.

Some accounts had him returning permanently to Germany, in 1876 and leaving his beer wagon delivery driver, August Mehlhorn, reluctantly in charge of the brewery. He actually left the brewery in the hands of Mehlhorn and Picht, c. 1876. An advertisement in the Seattle, Washington, City Directory, 1876, indicated that it operated on Front Street and produced lager beer and porter. (See Kirk C. Ward, Business Directory of the City of Seattle for the Year 1876, [Seattle: B.L. Northrup, Printer, 1876], p. 17.) It appears that he may have left Seattle for some time c. 1876-1877 but returned by 1879.

In reality, Schmieg's name appeared on US naturalization documents of 02/21/1873, 09/1874 and 06/14/1878. (See Ancestry.com, Source Citation National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, D.C.; Indexes to Naturalization Records of King County Territorial and Superior Courts, 1864-1889 and 1906-1928 (M1233); Microfilm Serial: M1233; Microfilm Roll: 1, accessed 12/30/2020.) The Directory of the City of Seattle, 1879, (p. 65), indicated that he was still a brewer in 1879, working on Front Street. suggesting, perhaps, that he had become an employee of Mehlhorn.

He was also a citizen living in Port Townsend, WA, in 1887. (See R.L. Polk and Company's Seattle, Washington, City Directory, 1887, p. 503.)

In 1890, Julius Wengert operated the North Pacific Brewery at another location on the east side of Lincoln Street near Lake Union. (See Polk's Seattle Directory Company's Seattle City Directory, 1890, p. 535.) This Lake Union complex had been the Slorah Steam Brewing Company before Wengert took over.

PCAD id: 23812