Today is the birthday of Charles Voegtle (June 7, 1841-September 27, 1914). He was born in Rothwell, Germany, and emigrated to the U.S. just as the Civil War was ending, in 1865, initially settling in Illinois. He started work in a brewery there and was promoted to foreman after five years. In 1869, he married Johanna Weisenhorn, herself a German immigrant who arrived through New Orleans in 1857 with her family and also settled in Adams County, Illinois.

The couple later moved to Boulder, Colorado, where Voegtle would co-found the Crystal Springs Brewing & Ice Co. with his brother-in-law, Frank Sales Weisenhorn in 1875.

Here’s Tavern Trove picks up the story:

Voegtle’s brother-in-law, Frank Sales Weisenhorn, was the son of a well-to-do farmer and saloon operator.  In 1873, Franks’s younger brother August moved his family and business out to Montana, where he quickly found success making wagons for miners who had plenty of gold and nothing to purchase. 

Frank decided he might try his own luck in a boomtown, and in 1876 he persuaded his brother-in-law Charles Voegtle to pack up their families and move west to Boulder, Colorado.  There they purchased the Crystal Springs Brewery from Keller & Zuelfehofer.  Frank’s father had likely provided the funding, and Charles provided the skill, as the firm was christened with Frank’s name first, “Weisenhorn & Voegtle.”  Their brewhouse was situated on the picturesque Boulder Creek, near where the Boulder County Library is today.  The creek was both the source of the water used to cool the brewing beer and the source of the gold that fed the quickly growing town.

Weisenhorn and Voegtle ran the brewery as partners for eleven years, after which Voegtle sold his partnership to Weisenhorn.  At age 45, Voegtle retired from the rough and tumble occupation of a brewer in a mining town. He, Johanna, and their children moved away from the rowdy brewhouse to a then-rural plot of land under the shadow of the Flatirons.  There they grew flowers and sold fruit. 

After Voegtle left the brewery, it went through several different owners and configurations of owners before closing for good due to prohibition in 1911. He died September 27th, 1917, at the age of 76 years.