The Richter Brewery, also known as the Delta Building, is a commercial building located at 1615 Ludington Street in

Escanaba, Michigan Escanaba ( ), commonly shortened to Esky, is a port city and the county seat of Delta County in the U.S. state of Michigan, located on Little Bay de Noc in the state's Upper Peninsula. The population was 12,450 at the 2020 census, making it the ...

. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 2009.

History

The Richter Brewing Company was organized in Escanaba in 1901. The company immediately hired a Milwaukee firm to design the building. Construction of the Richter Brewery proceeded from 1900 into 1901, and the Richter Brewery began manufacture in early 1901. Building and equipping the brewery cost $40,000. It was the second brewery in Escanaba. Over the next few years, additional buildings were constructed, including a keg house, office building, bottling plant, ice house and stable. All but the 1915 office building were demolished in 1929. The brewery closed at the beginning of

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...

, and it was sold in 1925. The building was then used to manufacture non-alcoholic beverages. At the end of Prohibition, it was sold to the Delta Brewery Company. The building was again used to brew beer until the Delta Brewing Company went bankrupt in 1940. The building remained vacant until the late 2000s. The building was purchased in 2008 with the intention of renovating it into loft apartment space; it was split into fifteen loft apartments and three ground-floor commercial spaces and named the Lofts on Ludington As of early 2012, the renovation was nearly complete, with 9 apartments leased and one of the three commercial spaces filled. It remained a mixed-use building in 2019, and has been used by the state of Michigan as an example of high-quality development.

Description

The Richter Brewery is a four-story

Late Victorian Victorian architecture is a series of architectural revival styles in the mid-to-late 19th century. ''Victorian'' refers to the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), called the Victorian era, during which period the styles known as Victorian we ...

building, measuring by , with some

Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended t ...

architectural elements. The building has corner towers and round-head windows.

References

External links

* *: the Richter Brewery's current incarnation * * {{National Register of Historic Places in Michigan Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan Victorian architecture in Michigan Industrial buildings completed in 1900 Brewery buildings in the United States Buildings and structures in Delta County, Michigan National Register of Historic Places in Delta County, Michigan