From Racine Walking Tour Guide published 1994. ERNST KLINKERT (1845 - 1936) On property at 4717 Lathrop Avenue stands the old Klinkert barn, a Kentucky blue-grass-style structure where brewer Ernst Klinkert kept his fine horses. It is one of a number of buildings that he constructed in the city and the county. Klinkert was born in Frankfurt and educated in Germany. He came to America when he was eighteen, living first n St. Louis and then in Milwaukee, where he worked for Valentine Blatz. He came to Racine in the early 1870s and was employed by Frederick Heck, the city’s first brewer. In 1878 he became the partner of Philip Schelling in the City Brewery. A year later he bought out Schelling. The E. Klinkert Brewery became Racine’s largest; it eventually employed about thirty people. Klinkert’s beer was touted as being both "healthful and invigorating," but in order to compete successfully with Milwaukee breweries, Klinkert bought or built local taverns, then leased them to those who agreed to sell only his beer - a common practice at the time. The finest of those can still be seen on Wisconsin Avenue in Sturtevant - the Klinkert House, a tavern and hotel that he built in 1910 next to the railroad station. Prohibition ended Klinkert’s brewery business. Even a "near beer" product could not sustain the general losses that eventually forced the company to raze all but one of its buildings, which stood in the 800 block along the north side of Washington Avenue. During Prohibition Klinkert built commercial buildings on the sites of some of his former taverns - like the one at 500-504 Sixth Street. His building often have a plaque set in the parapet bearing the Klinkert name. His most ambitious project, however, was the Uptown Theater, a move house at 1430 Washington Avenue that opened in 1928. Klinkert lived to be 92. In 1871 Mr. Klinkert was married to Miss Sophia Walter and they have six children, Louis, Hattie, Frank, Ella, George and Jennie. The parents are members of the German Lutheran church and as Mr. Klinkert has prospered in his undertakings he has contributed more and more largely to the church and to benevolent projects. Fourteen years later after his first wife died, he married Bertha Schultz (1860-1947), who outlived him and is buried in another section of the cemetery. Submitted by Deborah Crowell |