Update 3/20/26 @ 9 p.m. – Reader John D. McLean, City High class of 1959, wrote with this correction: “Your ‘FlashbackFriday’ posting on March 20, 2026 has an address error. The Whitewater Brewery building was on the corner of North Street and Jefferson Street and overlooked the creek. That is one block from Main Street. I grew up on Jefferson Street from 1941 to 1954 and walked past the brewery every day.” Our thanks to Mr. McLean. This website also confirms that location.
It’s time once again for #FlashbackFriday with the Whitewater Historical Society. This is an image of the Old Whitewater Brewery, formerly known as Klinger’s Brewery, on fire in 1974. The building was located on the corner of Main and Jefferson Streets and had been closed as a brewery since 1942. The brewery was built in 1862, closed during Prohibition in the 1920s, and reopened in 1933. But, it was too outdated to successfully survive in the 1940s. Its popular beer was known as “Old Cream Top.” The site stood vacant until the later 1980s when a group home facility was built there. Wisconsin had many small, local, breweries in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but they all could not compete with the large beer producers in the mid-20th century.
