Sweet Water Brewing Company 1899 Mug

The Sweet Water Brewing Company, opened in 1872 as the Green River Brewery, one of the first in the Wyoming Territory. Hugo Gaensslen purchased the brewery in 1892 and continued to operate it until 1899, when he leveled the structures. Leaning on architectural inspiration from his native Germany, as well as the Chicago Water Tower from the neighborhood he originally immigrated to, he built his modern new brewery with local sandstone blocks and reopened as the Sweet Water Brewing Company. In 1904 and 1905, the brewery won medals at the World’s Fair, and Sweet Water's beers were increasingly in demand. When Prohibition went into effect, Sweet Water did what many breweries did to stay afloat and produced non-alcoholic beverages.