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Description

Early Bay Area Brewery Image By Famed California Lithographer GT Brown

Fine early image of the Kreis's Pioneer Brewery, which appeared in Moore & De Pue's Illustrated History of San Mateo County.

The image is interesting for several reasons. It is perhaps the earliest surviving image of the Pioneer Brewery and it is the work pioneer African American lithographer, Grafton Tyler Brown.

Redwood City had several local breweries. The first brewer to set up shop in 1850 was Michael Kreiss, who operated from the intersection of Willow Street and El Camino Real. Kreiss's first brewery failed during the Economic Panic of 1873, but was re-opened again in 1877 as the Pioneer Brewery, eventually adding a soda works, store, and a branch location in Mountain View.  The business lasted until the early 1900s, when the changing community made it impossible to source local ingredients.

G.T. Brown

Grafton Tyler Brown is perhaps the first and unquestionably the most famous African American artist and lithographer to depict California and the Pacific Coast. Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, February 22, 1841, Brown moved to San Francisco at the age of 20 and learned the art of lithography from C. C. Kuchel. In 1861 and again in 1864, Brown created the two earliest bird's eye views of Virginia City. At the age of 26, he established his own firm, G.T. Brown & Co.

Brown produced skillfully illustrated bank notes, labels, and maps, and stock certificates for Wells Fargo, Levi Strauss and Co., and several mining companies. His significant lithographic production, The Illustrated History of San Mateo County (1878), featured 72 views of the county's communities and ranches. Brown traveled throughout Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, and British Columbia (where he settled in 1882), producing maps and illustrations, including many landscape paintings.

In 1893, Brown secured employment as a draftsman at the St. Paul, Minnesota office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Sometime during his St. Paul years he married Elberta Brown. Brown's work with the Corps of Engineers ended in December 1897, after which he worked in the civil engineering department of the city of St. Paul until 1910. He died on March 3, 1918, in Nicollet County, Minnesota, bringing to a close a rich and varied career as an artist and illustrator of the American West.

Reference
Historical Blog Series: Redwood City Saloons: More than just a Watering Hole, https://medium.com/redwood-city-voice/redwood-city-saloons-more-than-just-a-watering-hole-f83422aed2ac (2017)