Today is the birthday of Frederik C. (I’ve seen both Christian or Caspar, and his first name is sometimes spelled with the added “c,” as Frederick) Silkensen (March 5, 1839-April 15, 1908). He was born in Denmark, and emigrated to the U.S. when he was 28, in 1867. He bounced around the midwest, but ended up in Deadwood, South Dakota ten years later, where his carpentry skills were in demand after a major fire in 1879.
He ended up as a part-owner of the Gayville Export Beer Brewery in nearby Gayville. It was known, for a time, as the Heim & Silkinson Brewery. He eventually bought out Heim, who was also the brewmaster, but he over-extended himself and the brewery was closed in 1888. In the course of its short 12-year existence, it changed owners four times with different partners coming and going.
Pretty much all I could out about Silkensen comes from Tavern Trove, who gives this account:
Frederik Christian Silkensen was born in Denmark. At age 27 in 1867 he married Johanna Anderson in the town of Skelby, and within weeks the newlyweds boarded a ship for a voyage to the New World.
By the next year they were in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where Frederick obtained his Naturalization. In 1871 he was listed in the Sioux City, Iowa directory as a carpenter. They then lived in Yankton, the capitol of the Dakota Territory for a time before settling in Deadwood in 1877.
Deadwood was a boom town that sprang up in the pine forests almost overnight. When a fire consumed the town in 1879 the yellow pine buildings had to be built again. As a carpenter, Silkenson’s skills were in demand for three solid years after his arrival. But in 1881, after the town was rebuilt, Silkenson may have been looking elsewhere to make his fortune.
This may have been how he came to own the Gayville Export Beer Brewery just outside of Deadwood in the town of Gayville. In the spring of 1881 he purchased the minority share in the brewery from James Anderson. The controling partner was Fred Heim, an experienced brewer. On August 11th of that year he had purchased Heim’s partnership.
But Silkensen was overextended. The hot, beer-drinking months were over and there was less money coming in for debts. The Brewery went into foreclosure in November, and Frederick Silkensen’s reign as a Deadwood brewer was over.
At this Silkensen returned his focus to pinewood and opened a lumberyard in Buffalo Gap. The company later removed to Hot Springs where it became a very large business. F. C. Silkenson died on the 15th of April 1908 at age 69.
