It was a typical fall day in Golden, Colorado. People going about their business on November 14, 1873 hadn't the faintest idea of what was being born in the now abandoned Golden City Tannery. German immigrant Adolph Herman Joseph Coors invested $2,000 to go in with Jacob Schueler on a venture that would change the world of beer in America as we know it. This is the story of Coors, The third largest beer brewer in the United States, and now a regional division of the fifth largest brewing company in the entire world. Above all things, Coors is known for their creation and operation of the single largest brewing facility in the entire world.
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| Adolph Kuhrs was born in northwestern Germany |
Adolph Kurhs was born on February 4, 1847 in Barmen, Prussia which is now part of Germany. At the age of 15, both of his parents died, leaving him orphaned. He was an apprentice for a brewery owned by Henry Wenker at the time and completed his apprenticeship to become a paid employee of the Wenker Brewery in Dortmund. He continued to work for the Wenker Brewery until May of 1867. He then worked for three breweries in Kassel, Berlin, and Uelzen to finish out the year.
Early the next year, Adolph Kuhrs immigrated to the United States, arriving in New York City. He then made his way to Chicago, IL where he arrived on May 30, 1868. His name changed from Adolph Kuhrs to Coors when he arrived in the States, a name that would live in fame in centuries to come. Coors never forgot his origins, always finding himself in a brewery. In the spring of 1868, he would work as a laborer, but in the summertime, he worked as a brewer. During the fall and winter, he worked as a fireman, loading coal into the firebox of a steam engine.
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| Naperville was home to Coors for 4 years |
During the spring and summer of 1869, Adolph became an apprentice bricklayer and stone cutter but returned to brewing once again on August 11, of the same year when he became the foreman of John Stenger's Brewery in Naperville (Naperville is the neighboring town to me, so I literally live down the street from beer history!). His tenure at Stenger's Brewery had been his longest at any job he had had in the United States to that point, but on January 22, 1872, Adolph Coors submitted his resignation and began his journey west.
After a couple of gigs in Denver, Colorado, Adolph finally began what would root him into the profession he had always known- for the rest of his life. He paid $2,000 against the $18,000 investment of Jospeh Schueler to found the Schueler & Coors company on November 14, 1873. The once defunct Golden City Tannery had been converted to brew beer, and the company sold its first beer in February of 1874. Six years later, Adolph Coors purchased Schueler's interest in the company, renaming it the Adolph Coors Company.
