Today is the birthday of Herman Zibold (April 4, 1836-July 20, 1891). He was born in Riegel, Baden, in what today is Germany. When he was 23, in 1859, he emigrated to the U.S., and fought in the Civil War for four years. Afterward, he worked for breweries in St. Louis and St. Joseph, both in Missouri. He Eventually settled in Atchison, Kansas and with a business partner who was also originally from Baden, Joseph Haegelin, bought what was originally a brewery started by Hugo Knecht and Albert Weinman in 1860. Zibold bought it from the third owners in 1871, and renamed it the Zibold & Haegelin Brewery. Zibold operated the brewery for the next twenty years, and after he died, Haegelin continued the business but also died two years later, in 1893. Their two widows kept it going, but it closed for good in 1902.

This biography is from Tavern Trove, the breweriana website.

Corporal Herman Ziebold was born in Granion, Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.  After his primary education in Germany he apprenticed as a brewer.  He emigrated to the United States in 1854 and after working at breweries in the Indiana town of Lawrenceburg, Chicago he settled finally St. Louis.

Upon the outbreak of the Civil War Ziebold was 24, and he enlisted to fight for the Union.  He served almost the entirety of the war.  After Lee’s surrender at Appomattox he lived again in St. Louis, where met Miss Rosa Franz.  They were married in August of 1867.  The Ziebolds then moved to St. Joseph, Missouri where Herman got a job in the Nunning Brewery.  There he met his Josef Hagelin, a man who not only would soon be his brother-in-law, but also his business partner.  In 1871 both families moved to the Great Plains where they purchased the brewery owned by hotelier John Stamm in Atchison, Kansas.

For 20 years Herman Ziebold and Josef Haegelin were partners in the brewery in Atchison.  Ziebold & Hagelin’s Southwest Lager & Beer Brewery became nationally famous as the brewery that stubbornly refused to go out of business despite the best efforts of God and the Government.  The firm became defendants in an important Prohibition-related lawsuit that made its way all the way to the Supreme Court.  The firm ultimately won their case as the court affirmed that municipalities had the right to enact laws that forbid the sale of alcohol, under the guise of public health, but could not forbid its manufacture for sale elsewhere.  The Southwest’s extensive distribution network on the other side of the Missouri state line sustained it, for the time being.

Herman Ziebold died on the 20th of July, 1891 at the age of 56 years.  Hagelin died on the 25th of January, 1893.  The brewery, thereafter run by the widows of the original partners, continued into the next century, and finally closed, after three decades of defiance, in 1902.

And this account is from the Free Library:

The Zibold-Haegelin Brewery, which was located on Price Boulevard in this northeast Kansas town, was allowed to flourish while others across the state were shuttered after Kansas outlawed liquor in 1880.

In fact the brewery became famous throughout the state and the nation for its persistence in fighting against abstinence laws well before Prohibition became part of the U.S. Constitution in 1920.

“The biggest thing about (the Zibold-Haegelin brewery) is during Kansas Prohibition they just kind of ignored it,” said Chris Taylor, executive director of the Atchison County Historical Society.

According to the book “The History of the Haegelin-Zibold Family” by the Rev. William Haegelin, the brewery began after his great-grandfather, Joseph Haegelin, and Herman Zibold brought the A. Stem Brewery here in 1871.

Both men were German immigrants trained in the brewery trade in their native Baden, Germany.

The men, who would eventually become close friends as well as brothers-in-law when Mr. Haegelin married Mr. Zibold’s sister Emma, promptly tore down the old brewery and erected a more modem one on the same grounds.

The business proved very successful, despite the various laws that were beginning to be passed against the sale of liquor in Kansas during the mid- to late 1800s.

But in 1880, after the Kansas Legislature submitted a vote to the people, Kansas became a “dry” state. It became against the law to manufacture or sell intoxicating beverages in the state.

Despite the law, the Zibold-Haegelin Brewery still continued to operate. In fact, in 1887 it was reported that the brewery was producing more than 3,000 barrels of beer a year.

That the brewery was allowed to flourish while the rest of the state went dry was due in part to the fact that then-Kansas Gov. John Alexander Martin lived in Atchison at the time and had become close friends with the brewers.

Governor Martin found innovative ways to help his friends stay in business, One argument he made was that since the brewery was on the northeast corner of Kansas, it was actually a Missouri border town and therefore legal. But other times when he actually did order the sheriff to “arrest” his friends for breaking the law.

“What I heard about it was that the sheriff showed up ever so often to make the arrests of one of the owners and take him to jail where they basically played cards for the afternoon while the other one ran the business,” Taylor said. “They did this just to make sure the Prohibition part of the community was satisfied that they were doing something.”

After Herman Zibold died in 1891 and Joseph Haegelin in 1893, their widows continued to run the business and later their sons took over. It continued to operate until 1902 when it was finally forced to close down.

Emma Haegelin purchased the Zibold interest and along with her son August turned the brewery into “The Crystal Ice Co.”

The Haegelins two other sans, Karl and Joseph Jr., remained in the brewery profession. Karl went to work for the Goetz Brewery in St. Joseph, while Joseph Jr. went to work for Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis.

August Haegelin eventually bought his mother’s interest in the business and continued to operate the ice company until he sold the old brewery buildings to the Kansas Power and Light Co. in 1927.