{"nrhp_refnum":"82002585","name":"Yakel House and Union Brewery","other_names":["Netzhammer House and Bluff City Brewery"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"1421--1431 Pearl St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Alton","county":"Madison County","state":"IL","lat":38.89252635200006,"lon":-90.16449189799994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1982-05-11","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A district at 1421-31 Pearl Street, Alton, Illinois, made up of an 1863 brick house built for George Yakel and a complex of thirteen brewery buildings, the Union Brewery (later Bluff City Brewery), dating from 1836 through the 1940s.","why_significant":"The nomination calls it an excellent, well-preserved example of a mid-19th century family-owned brewery complex built and run by German immigrants. Only two owner families held it over about 145 years. The brewery buildings show industrial design changing over 116 years, and the house is a fine example of vernacular brick construction with German antecedents.","narrative":"On a triangular 4.8-acre site in Alton, Illinois, a brick house and a cluster of brewery buildings record more than a century of German-American enterprise. Philip Yakel arrived from Germany in 1836 and founded Alton's first brewery, the Union Brewery. His son George built the two-and-a-half-story brick house in 1863, with a center hall, high second-floor ceilings and an ornamented iron balcony. In 1882 William Netzhammer, a brewmaster from Baden, Germany, bought the property and renamed the business Bluff City Brewery. Beer was made until wartime restrictions in 1918, and during Prohibition the brewery was licensed to produce near-beer. Brewing resumed in 1933 and stopped in 1952 when refrigeration machinery failed. The thirteen buildings include early stone structures from the 1830s and 1840s, a prominent 1860s brick packing-washroom building, and 1930s warehouse and office buildings. Only two families owned the property, and its hillside setting keeps the look of a separate enclave.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899 (house 1863; brewery from 1836)","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Vernacular brick construction with German antecedents (house); industrial brewery buildings","criteria":[],"status_note":"The house was vacant for a few years in the 1970s and since May 1980 has been used as a not-for-profit alcoholism rehabilitation center. The brewery closed in 1952; the house is in good condition, the brewery in fair condition, and the boiler room building is in poor condition.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:35.314473-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/62/8935/28893562/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/82002585.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/82002585/d1a239b17d-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/82002585/d1a239b17d-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Nyttend","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yakel_House_and_Union_Brewery_complex.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Nyttend</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yakel_House_and_Union_Brewery_complex.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28893562","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakel_House_and_Union_Brewery","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16903904"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/madison-county/yakel-house-and-union-brewery-82002585/"}