August Uihlein
August Uihlein (1842–1911) was a German-American brewer and business executive.
Biography
He was born in Wertheim am Main, Baden, Germany, where his family had for years kept the Gasthaus zur Krone, an inn. In 1850, the Tauber River flooded, filling the inn's basement. Uihlein's grandfather, George Krug, offered to take his oldest grandson with him to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the United States, where Krug's son August had a tavern and brewery. During the trip from Wertheim, their ship caught fire in the mid-Atlantic. Krug and Uihlein held on to a wooden box until rescued by sailors of the American bark, Devonshire.
In Milwaukee, Uihlein attended the German-English Academy. He also attended St. Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri from 1855 to 1857, and then worked in the Uhrig Brewery in St. Louis from 1857 to 1867. Returning to Milwaukee in 1867, he joined what was now the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, the same brewery that had been founded by his uncle August Krug in the 1840s (Krug's widow, Anna Maria, had married Joseph Schlitz in 1858).
On the death of Schlitz in 1875, control of the firm passed into the hands of Uihlein and his brothers. When Mrs. Schlitz died in 1887, the Uihlein brothers acquired complete ownership of the corporation. Uihlein was secretary and chairman of the board (1874–1911). He was also actively involved in banking, real estate, and many other Milwaukee businesses.
Interested in purebred racehorses, he kept a large stock farm at Truesdell, Wisconsin, near Kenosha. Uihlein donated large sums to the German-English Academy and to the Milwaukee Public Library.
He died while traveling in Germany.