Joseph Schlitz

Joseph Schlitz was a German-American entrepreneur who made his fortune in the brewing industry.

Biography

Joseph Schlitz was born on May 15, 1831, in Mainz, Hesse-Darmstadt. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1850.
In 1856, he assumed management of the Krug Brewery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1858, when he married George August Krug's widow, Anna Maria Krug, he changed the name of the company to the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. He became more successful after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Many of Chicago's breweries that had burned never reopened. Schlitz established a distribution point there and acquired a large part of the Chicago market.
Schlitz was a Freemason and was affiliated with Aurora Lodge No. 30.
Schlitz perished with 334 others in the wreck of the SS Schiller in thick fog off the Isles of Scilly on May 7, 1875. The islands lie west of Cornwall, England. He was returning via New York City and Hamburg, visiting Germany. Aged 43, his body was never recovered. A cenotaph at Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee honors him.