Today is the birthday of Johan ‘John’ Hallgren (June 12, 1867-April 7, 1926). He was born in Maglehem, Skåne, Sweden and moved the U.S. sometime between 1881 (when he was 14) and 1890 (when he was 22) with at least four different sourced dates. By 1893, he was living in Delaware and married Alma Maria Fredriksdotter Svensson. The couple had six children, and lived in a variety of places, including New Castle and Willmington, Delaware, New York City, and a number of small towns in Pennsylvania, like Chester, Harrisburg, Hershey, and, finally, Mount Joy.

In Mount Joy, there was a brewery, the Mount Joy Brewery, which was founded by Philip Franck in 1860. It was later bought by Alois Bube, who owned it from 1877 until his death in 1908, after which his estate and family kept it going for another six years. In 1914, they sold it to Hallgren, who appears to have worked as a brewer before that, and he operated it until 1917, when it was closed due to prohibition.