Mautz's Tavern- A Historical Commentary

Vintage, Retro Soda Bottles They just don't make them like this anymore.  Although they are heavy and fragile to transport, they are a more environmentally friendly option than the plastic soda bottles of today. And they just look so much cooler!! Buried in a box in the side garage were a pile of empty soda bottles of various brands.  I find the bygone days of regional soda, before Pepsi and Coke took over everything, fascinating.  I grabbed a few of some of these more interesting looking bottles, most of brands I had never heard of, and found a way to use them as vintage decor in my office. Most of these are from the 1950s. It was fun to do a little retro soda research. We do love our soda pop! Pile of 60+ year old empty soda bottles Vintage Soda Bottle Decor in My Office Howel's Root Beer Bottle is Circa late 1940s The origins of Howel's Beverage Company out of Chicago, IL started with the sale of an orange-julep syrup (this would eventually bec...

And here I thought it was Weber Tires that put East Bristol on the Map In 1976, a reporter for the Daily Cardinal (a student run newspaper of the UW-Madison) stopped by the tavern to interview my grandpa. Man, a lot went down inside and outside of this tavern in little old East Bristol: bar fights; North Bristol vs. East Bristol rivalries; live turkey hunts; pre-refrigeration ice parties, the solid-oak Frigidaire he bought in 1930 for $345 (this piece just sold at auction for $976.00), and the 'Keyeser Indians'. The bar looked almost exactly the same just a few short months ago as it did in 1976 when this photo ran in the paper, with the exception of course, of no longer having 'the man who put East Bristol on the map' behind the bar. Pa Mautz, 1976 Daily Cardinal Article, 1976

Bathtub Gin Okay, here's another great story that my Uncle Bud shared with me just a month or so ago.  Pa and Toni would make batches of liquor in a big tub right in the middle of the kitchen.  He said they would wash it out and it was the same tub they would use to take a bath in. They would make a tub full of their product, bottle it up, cap it, and then store it in the basement to ferment.  Apparently, it wasn't uncommon to be woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of a bottle that had over-fermented, exploding and popping the cap. Grandma would remark with agitation about the "loss of profit" when that would happen. I have absolutely no proof that this was the bath tub that was used in their production endeavors, but I do know that this tub was there for a very long time. It know it seemed old back when I had to take a bath in it as a kid when I would spend the night at grandpa and grandma's (yup, no bathrooms were ever added to the building so e...

My Grandpa was a Bootlegger, Part 1 I always knew my grandparents ran the tavern during prohibition, but I guess it never really occurred to me what they did to make ends meet during that time. There are stories coming out now that I had never heard about some of their homemade hooch.  One of my favorites was one that my aunt shared with us shortly before she passed. Apparently my grandparents would make their own 'beverages' and my grandfather would sell it to the construction workers down the road that were building Highway 151 at the time.  Of course after that, I had to google when Highway 151 was first built, and sure enough, it was in 1926 that the highway was originally constructed from Fond du Lac, WI to Madison, WI - of course running right by the Columbus, WI and East Bristol, WI area.  The perfect clientele in my opinion. Who wouldn't want a little happy hour beverage after a day of building a highway back in the 20's? Remnants of the prohibition era ...