revisiting the site of the joseph hussa brewery: my first experience as a young "urban explorer"

i was either 10 or 11 years of age when an old friend of mine would invite me to the small town of bangor, wisc., to explore what remained of the dilapidated buildings consisting of the joseph hussa brewery. brewmaster hussa constructed the primary limestone brewhouse during the mid-19th century, but shortly thereafter, he sold the brewery to frederick raasch in 1866 and for many years after, the brewery changed ownership and configurations numerous times, with newly added outbuildings, a tragic fire and later, conversion to a purina packaging plant.

note: in the picture above, the arch top opening that led to the tunnels is located off-center from the brewhouse on the the bottom right corner of the building.

by the time my friend and i arrived, the complex was completely abandoned and slowly giving way to the outdoor elements and numerous critters calling it "home." prior to closing, the last business to occupy the buildings was a purina chow packaging facility if i recall correctly. to this day, i can recall that horrific, indescribable stench that pervaded the buildings.

perhaps the most impressionable experiences or memories from my childhood urban explorations were the incredibly creepy, dark and damp caves that rested below the main hussa brewhouse. i remember the large arch top opening (where horse-drawn wagons used to come and go with wood kegs of beer) that we would cautiously enter in order to gain access to the seemingly unending dark and dank tunnels designed to keep the beer cool. everytime we would reach the tunnels, we would pause; our flashlights offered a glimpse of an unending brick-lined tunnel, but it was filled deep with water. we no doubt were itching to explore the tunnel(s) dug deep below the brewhouse, but we were paralyzed by our fears and/or overactive imaginations as to what malicious "things" might lurk under that cold and dark water.

finally one day we set aside our fears and cobbled together a makeshift "raft" during what turned out to be our last visit and just went for it. we moved along at a steady pace in this eerily quiet cavern, guided by our flashlights illuminating what lied ahead.

off in the distance, the tunnel veered to the right and both my friend and i were dying to know what was around the corner and beyond. then, as we were making our way closer to that turning point something under the raft spooked my friend and he jumped out of the raft and trudged through the water with his adrenaline driven up to full throttle. i in turn busted out into uncontrollable laughter and slowly pushed the raft back to the beginning of the tunnel, where the sand meet the water. after that experience, we never returned and i will have to just accept that i will never know what was around that corner. i'm sure it was only additional tunnels and the like, but that is just pure conjecture - plus i want to believe that we would come across some incredibly cool and massive cavern like in the movie "goonies."

nearly 24 years later i learned that the brewery was going to be demolished. by then i consumed with building the business here in chicago (at the time it was still in its infancy), so there wasn't much i could do in terms of taking the necessary time away to make the long trek back to wisconsin and revisit the complex before or during the demolition.

at least i had my memories of the interior and exterior which were still very much intact, with many details never forgotten. i was delighted to find a few photos of the interior area beyond that large arch top opening while searching the web in preparation for this post. my mental imagery from childhood was very much aligned with the photographs an unidentified urban explorer documented with his/her camera. since i was just a kid at the time, the idea of photographing what my friend and i experienced never crossed my mind.

additional photos courtesy of the bangor historical society and johnny bravo

fast forward to 2014, when i was in the middle of a deal to acquire the collection of la crosse-based interior designer odin j. oyen - at least the bulk of it pertaining specifically to odin j. oyen and not so much his firm's commissions mainly executed by lead artist, axel soderburg, who painted several murals for buildings odin j. oyen secured throughout the midwest. while assembling the collection i was preparing to purchase, i happened to notice a polychromatic watercolor rendering of an early 20th century brew hall or possibly a brewery office painted by odin j. oyen (oyen's firm work with several local breweries during the late 19th and early 20th century ((mostly notably old style lager by g. heileman). after further inspection, i noticed an impressive "scenic" mural of the old hussa brewery. i was so pleasantly surprised and immediately thought back to my experiences in that brewery as a boy. of course, the rendering made its way into my collection, after being restored and framed for display in my home. discovering that rendering not only motivated me to reach out to my old friend, who i had not spoken to in many, many years, but gave me the inspiration to create a post about this unusual experience - another "coming full circle" moment perhaps.

after leaving the city of la crosse, while visiting my parents, nancy and i made a point to visit the site of the brewery. as expected, the brewhouse was long gone and if the tunnels still existed, the entrance was likely covered over with rubble from the demolition in 2008. it would be interesting to track down the wrecker to determine whether he salvaged anything from the brewery. perhaps someday i will.

many years later, i revisited the site where the brewery once stood. the buildings are long gone and the tunnels likely filled or walled off.

update as of 6-5-2017:this morning i received an email - nearly three years after i originally posted the hussa brewer entry from an ancestor of the hussa brewery family. i was pleased to receive additional insight into the building complex and how it changed over time, espeically after it ceased being a brewery. the email i received is shown below:

Hussa brewery pictures from Bangor

Thanks for posting the pictures of the old Hussa brewery and the caverns & tunnels in Bangor, WI.

Just to let you know, the Hussa Brewery in Bangor continued until 1920. From then to 1935 it was the Hussa canning and pickle factory. Otto died in 1935 while the court case over whether the canning factory or the town would own the electrical utility according to my mother, Melba (Hussa) Jones. The company lost the case, the town took over the electrical utility. The canning factory had been on wobbly financial grounds for years, and with the loss of the electrical utility, the canning factory went broke.

The building labeled the brewery office bldg. in your pictures was really the old brewmaster's house. The office building is still standing (VFW club house in front, ice cream parlor in the rear). The brewmaster's house was just West of the office.

Regards,

Gary