A suspicious fire sent a tower of smoke over St. Paul's East Side late Wednesday afternoon, destroying the oldest building in the historic Hamm and Stroh brewery.
St. Paul Fire Chief Douglas Holton said investigators had not determined what caused the blaze in the 141-year-old building, but police got a call earlier in the afternoon that someone was inside.
"It's very suspicious," said St. Paul Fire Chief Douglas Holton. But officers found nothing amiss when they responded to the earlier call.
Flames were shooting through the roof when firefighters arrived about 5:30 p.m.
"We tried to do an offensive attack, but the fire was too advanced," Holton said.
It took about two hours to bring the fire under control. One firefighter suffered a minor injury but stayed on the job fighting the fire, Holton said.
Damage appeared centered in the carpenter's shop. Most of the brewery complex, which spreads over nearly 30 acres, was not affected.
The thick smoke could be seen from as far away as Hudson, Wis., and attracted numerous onlookers. Flames nipped at the forested hillside toward Swede Hollow Park as people in the park wandered into the trees for a closer look.
Founded in the 1850s as the Pittsburg Brewery, it was bought in 1864 by Theodore Hamm and expanded in 1901. Stroh Brewing took over the plant in 1983 and closed it in 1997.
"What's heartbreaking is that this is where some of the most historic parts of the brewery are," said City Council President Kathy Lantry, who represents the area. "It's so sad.''
"It's just a crying shame," said Carol Carey, head of the preservation group Historic St. Paul, as she paced as close as she could near the fire to eye the damage.
The city bought an 8.8-acre portion of the site in 2003 for $1.2 million. In a study presented to the city's Housing and Redevelopment Authority a year ago, Carey and other Dayton's Bluff residents tapped to study the site's future opposed demolishing the complex, instead favoring a number of renovation options that included any combination of condominiums, artists' quarters, ice cream parlors and movie theaters.
But instead of getting closer to revitalization, the brewery development idled, making it a convenient cache for scavengers who'd walk past the unsecured fences and climb through broken windows to retrieve metal and other items, she said.
"They can't sit for months and years boarded up and waiting for vandalism," said Carey, who lives about a block from the plant.
The fire was in the carpenter shop, built in 1864. Built mainly of limestone, the two-story structure was originally a stable before being remodeled in 1901. There was a lot of wood inside, and it faced a park.
"Oh, that's my favorite building," said a saddened Ann Tinucci Anderson, a former employee. "That's where I would escape from the day to go visit with the guys."
It is where the Hamm family would keep the draft horses in the brewery's earlier years, said Tinucci Anderson, who led tours when she worked there for 13 years. While the complex is mostly vacant, she is glad most of the complex was saved from destruction.
Tim Nelson contributed to this report.
Distributed by the Associated Press
