Bozeman's Lehrkind Mansion Bed & Breakfast

Julius Lehrkind was born in Hagen, Germany in 1842. As a teenager, he started his career in the beer industry by becoming apprentice in a brewery. To avoided compulsory military service, he stowed away on a ship to America when he was 17. He made his way to Philadelphia where he got a job in a brewery. Then in 1868, he received an inheritance from his father and moved to Davenport, Iowa with his brother, Fred, who had arrived in American by this time. There, they opened up a brewery and Lehrkind married his wife, Emelie, with whom he had six children. Fred married Emelie's sister and they had four children. Sadly, Fred and his wife died early and Lehrkind brought their children into his family. In 1893, Iowa adopted prohibition laws which forced Lehrkind to close the brewery. The next year he sold it and moved his family, as well as his employees, to Bozeman. The entourage, which included the brewery equipment, was so large that it filled three train cars.

Bozeman was the ideal for a brewery. It had good water (at each stop on the way to Montana Lehrkind tasted the water and was unimpressed), he was close to barley producers, and the town was centrally located. He bought the existing Spieg and Krug Brewery in 1895 and moved the company to where the historic district is now, and changed the name to Bozeman Brewery (the Spieg and Krug building still stands on Main Street). The family suffered another loss when Emelie passed away in 1897, the year the house was built. Lehrkind later married her niece, Lina, in 1899 and they had a son. As alluded to above, Lehrkind's son Henry and nephew, Edwin, built their own homes next to the mansion in 1908 and 1912, respectively. As for the company, it was very successful, producing 40,000 barrels of beer per year.

In addition to making beer, Lehrkind started producing soft drinks, such as sarsaparilla and lemon soda, after moving to Bozeman. This enabled the company to become a Coca-cola franchise in 1914 (please note that some of the sources state that the company didn't start making soft drinks until around 1925).

Unfortunately, prohibition—this time nationwide—forced Lehrkin to close his brewery again in 1919. He continued to produce (if the information is correct) soft drinks but also founded the Lehrkind Coal and Pure Ice Company, which operated out of the brewery building. Lehrkind died in 1922, perhaps as a result of a broken heart. His son, Carl, built the soft drink bottling plant across the street from the mansion in 1925. Edwin produced beer again for a brief period beginning in 1932 after prohibition ended. In the coming years, the bottling building became an ice plant and warehouse, a creamery, and a recording studio. The family eventually moved its bottling facilities to its current location.

Carl lived in the mansion until he passed away in the mid-1960s. Over the years, the mansion was used as antique shop, a rehearsal space for bands, apartments, and even a motorcycle repair shop. It appears to have been a bed and breakfast since the late 1990s.

"Bozeman Brewery Historic District." National Park Service - National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form. October 23, 1987. https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/48d22b23-cebc-49c1-b2ab-6ba07c82dd6b.

"The Lehrkind's Family." Lehrkinds. Accessed July 3, 2020. https://www.lehrkinds.com.

"Our History." Julius Lehrkind Brewing. Accessed July 3, 2020. https://juliusbrewing.com/history.

Staley, Oliver. "Lehrkind Mansion a century old local legend." Bozeman Daily Chronicle. September 13, 1997. https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/article_6270c343-1330-525e-b6ff-952b2e9531c8.html.