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Colonel Adolphus Busch (July 10, 1839 – October 10, 1913) was the German-born co-founder of Anheuser-Busch with his father-in-law, Eberhard Anheuser. His great-great-grandson, August Busch IV is now a board member on Anheuser-Busch InBev.
h was born in 1839 in Kastel, a district of Mainz in the Grand Duchy of Hesse. He was the second youngest of 22 siblings. The family worked in winery and brewery supplies. He attended the Collegiate Institute of Belgium in Brussels, and left his home in 1857 with three of his brothers for St. Louis, Missouri:
His first job in St.
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Colonel Adolphus Busch (July 10, 1839 – October 10, 1913) was the German-born co-founder of Anheuser-Busch with his father-in-law, Eberhard Anheuser. His great-great-grandson, August Busch IV is now a board member on Anheuser-Busch InBev.
Biography
Busch was born in 1839 in Kastel, a district of Mainz in the Grand Duchy of Hesse. He was the second youngest of 22 siblings. The family worked in winery and brewery supplies. He attended the Collegiate Institute of Belgium in Brussels, and left his home in 1857 with three of his brothers for St. Louis, Missouri:
- Johann, who established a brewery in Washington, Missouri,
- Ulrich Jr, who married another daughter of Eberhard Anheuser, and lived in Chicago, and
- Anton, who was a hop dealer, but returned home to Mainz.
His first job in St. Louis was working as a clerk in the commission house. He was also an employee at William Hainrichshofen's wholesale company.
He became acquainted with Lilly Anheuser, whose parents had a small brewery which her father Eberhard Anheuser (1805-1880) acquired in 1860, renaming it from the Bavarian Brewery to the E. Anheuser Brewery.
He married 17 year old Lilly Eberhard Anheuser on March 7, 1861 in St. Louis. They had thirteen children, including Adolphus Busch II; August Anheuser Busch I; Carl Busch; and five daughters.
During the American Civil War he served in the United States Army for 14 months. It was at this time that he learned that his father had died and that he had inherited a portion of his father's estate. He used the money to start a wholesale brewer's supply store, and four years later he bought a share in the Bavarian brewery from Eberhard Anheuser, his father-in-law. The company was first called "Anheuser and Company", but at the death of Eberhard Anheuser in 1879, it was changed to "Anheuser Busch Company".
The rapid success of the Anheuser Brewer made its owner independent and permitted him to perform philanthropic activities, such as assisting in the repair of the devastating 1882 flooding of Kastel-Mainz by the Rhine River.
In 1891 Adolphus bought from Carl Conrad the trademark and name Budweiser.
He envisioned a national beer with universal appeal. Toward this end, he created a network of rail-side ice-houses and launched the industry’s first fleet of refrigerated freight cars. Success came when Adolphus found a method to pasteurize the beer so it kept fresh. The beer could now be shipped all over the country. He was also an early adopter of bottled beer. In 1901 sales surpassed the one million barrels of beer benchmark.
In 1912, Busch constructed the Adolphus Hotel in Dallas, Texas, then the tallest building in the state.
The Busches often traveled to Germany where they had a mansion, "Villa Lilly":de:Villa Lilly (named for Mrs. Busch) in Lindschied near Langenschwalbach, Germany (now Bad Schwalbach, Germany); he died there in 1913 while on vacation. He had been suffering from dropsy since 1906. His body was brought back in 1915 by ship to the United States and then a train to St. Louis and he was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.
Legacy
The Adolphus Busch is also an intentionally sunk ship off of the middle Florida Keys. Adolphus Busch IV contributed nearly $200,000 to the procurement of this vessel and its preparation for sinking as an artificial reef. As a result, the vessel was named in his honor. Today it is a marine habitat and popular dive site.
Adolphus Busch also built a series of buildings in downtown Dallas. One of which was the Busch Building, now known as the Kirby Residences, located at 1509 Main St. It is a national landmark.
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