Heim Brewery and Kansas City's Pre-Prohibition Brewing

Long before Boulevard, Kansas City was a serious brewing town. The Heim Brewery in the East Bottoms grew into one of the largest breweries west of St. Louis, built and powered the city’s first Electric Park amusement park next door, and — with the Muehlebach brewery on the other side of the story — anchored a KC beer industry that Prohibition destroyed and that did not fully return until Boulevard opened in 1989. This page is the heritage backdrop to Boulevard’s claim of being “the first new brewery in the metro since 1973.”

[!info] Cornerstone-adjacent entry Created out of the deep-dive on Boulevard Brewing. Citation-first; sourced to named references with links. Superlatives (“largest west of the Mississippi/St. Louis”) vary between sources and are attributed rather than asserted flatly.

The Heim Brewery (1884)

Ferdinand Heim Sr. entered the Kansas City brewing business in 1884, when he and his sons Ferd Jr., Michael, and Joseph purchased the old Star Brewery at 14th and Main.¹ The three brothers divided the work: by one account “Joseph ran the brewery, Ferd Jr. managed expenses, and Michael handled promotion.”²

In 1887 the Heims bought an old sugar-refining plant in the East Bottoms (near Agnes Avenue and Montgall) and rebuilt it as a modern brewery, adding a five-story brick malt house in 1888 and, in 1901, a new bottling plant at 501 Montgall Avenue designed by the noted local architect Charles A. Smith.¹ At its height around the turn of the century the Heim operation was reported to produce well over 100,000 barrels a year and employ hundreds — described in period sources as the largest brewery west of St. Louis (some accounts stretch this to “west of the Mississippi”).²¹

In 1905 the Heim brewery absorbed the local Rochester and Imperial breweries and reorganized as the Kansas City Breweries Company, consolidating much of the city’s beer production under one company.²¹

Electric Park — the brewery’s amusement park

To draw crowds (and sell beer), the Heims built Kansas City’s first Electric Park next to the brewery in the East Bottoms in 1899 — an amusement park lit by over 100,000 electric lights, with a Shoot-the-Chutes ride and a beer garden served by beer piped directly from the adjacent brewery.¹³ The Heims built a streetcar line to reach it (about $90,000, later sold to the Metropolitan Street Railway for $250,000).¹ The first park operated roughly 1899–1906; a larger, more famous second Electric Park opened in 1907 at 46th/47th Street and The Paseo.³

A Walt Disney footnote — and a myth corrected. It is often said that Electric Park inspired Walt Disney’s Disneyland, and that is true — but of the second (1907, Paseo) park, not the Heims’ original East Bottoms park. Disney’s family did not arrive in Kansas City until 1911, after the first park had closed; the young Walt visited the Paseo park, and later borrowed touches like a train ringing the grounds and nightly closing fireworks.³

Prohibition ends KC brewing (1918)

Kansas City’s brewing industry was killed by Prohibition. With Missouri’s early enforcement and the federal Volstead Act (1919), the Heims’ brewing history ended around 1918.¹ The great East Bottoms brewery complex went silent, and the industry that had employed thousands did not recover for generations.

The Muehlebach → Schlitz → 1973 line

The other major KC brewer was the George Muehlebach Brewing Company, founded 1868, “at one time the largest brewery in the Kansas City area.”⁴ Muehlebach survived Prohibition and remained a major post-repeal KC brewer until, in July 1956, the assets were purchased by the national brewer Schlitz.⁵ Schlitz ran the former Muehlebach plant until September 28, 1973, when it closed the Kansas City brewery.⁵⁴

That 1973 closure is the historical fact behind Boulevard’s founding story: when John McDonald opened Boulevard in 1989, Kansas City had been without a functioning brewery for sixteen years.

Surviving buildings

Two pieces of the Heim complex survive in the East Bottoms and have been reborn:

• The 1901 Ferd Heim bottling plant (architect Charles A. Smith) was renovated by J. Rieger & Co. into a distillery that opened in 2018.¹
• The old malt room off Guinotte Avenue now houses an urban farm.²

Sources

Footnotes

1. Northeast News — “Northeast’s own Heim Brewery.” https://northeastnews.net/pages/northeasts-own-heim-brewery/ — Confirms: Ferd Heim Sr. + sons Ferd Jr., Michael, Joseph purchase the Star Brewery (1884); 1887 East Bottoms plant, 1888 malt house, 1901 bottling plant at 501 Montgall (architect Charles A. Smith); first Electric Park 1899 with 100,000+ lights and beer piped from the brewery; streetcar-line figures; Prohibition/Volstead ending the Heims’ brewing ~1918; J. Rieger renovation of the bottling plant. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. KC Yesterday — “Reviving the Legacy of Heim Brewery.” https://kcyesterday.com/articles/reviving-the-legacy-of-heim-brewery-sustainable-farming-and-local-businesses-in-kansas-citys-east-bottoms — Confirms: division of labor among the three brothers; ~130,000 barrels / 250 employees / “largest brewery west of St. Louis” by 1900; 1905 absorption of Rochester and Imperial and reorganization as Kansas City Breweries Company; malt room now an urban farm. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

3. Wikipedia — “Electric Park, Kansas City.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Park,_Kansas_City — Confirms: first (East Bottoms, 1899–1906) and second (1907, 47th & Paseo) Electric Parks; beer piped from the adjacent brewery; Walt Disney’s family arrival in KC (1911) and his visits to the second park influencing Disneyland (a train ringing the park, nightly fireworks). ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. Wikipedia — “George Muehlebach Brewing Company.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Muehlebach_Brewing_Company — Confirms: founded 1868; “at one time the largest brewery in the Kansas City area”; Schlitz purchase (1956) and 1973 closure of the former Muehlebach brewery. ↩ ↩²

5. Northeast News — “The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous” (Schlitz in KC). https://northeastnews.net/pages/the-beer-that-made-milwaukee-famous/ — Confirms: Schlitz’s KC presence began by purchasing the George Muehlebach brewery’s assets and equipment in July 1956; the Kansas City plant closed September 28, 1973. ↩ ↩²