Adolphus Busch and Busch Mausoleum

Adolphus Busch and the Busch Mausoleum. Born on July 10, 1839, German-born Adolphus was the 21st of 22 children. Even at a young age, he was bound for success in the beverage industry as his family ran a wholesale business of winery and brewery supplies. In 1857, at the age of 18, Adolphus came with three of his older brothers to St. Louis, MO. He married Elise "Lilly" Eberhard Anheuser, the third daughter of Eberhard Anheuser, on March 7, 1861, here in St. Louis, MO. They had 13 children; eight sons, including Adolphus Busch II, August Anheuser Busch I and Carl Busch, and five daughters. Adolphus Busch eventually entered his wife's family's brewery business. Adolphus bought out Eberhard Anheuser's partner, William D'Oench, and in 1879, the company was renamed Anheuser-Busch. At the death of Eberhard in 1880, Adolphus became the leader of the business. He envisioned a national beer with universal appeal. Adolphus introduced numerous innovations, building the company's success in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He pioneered the pasteurization of beer so that it could be kept in rail-side icehouses and shipped in refrigerated rail cars throughout the country without a loss of quality. Busch pioneered bottling beer in glass bottles and founded the Busch Glass Company to assure a steady supply of bottles to his brewery business. He purchased the trademarked name "Budweiser" from Carl Conrad in 1891 for his product. His successful brewing business allowed Adolphus and his family to contribute to many philanthropic activities, using his vast wealth for education and humanitarian needs. He had suffered from dropsy since 1906 and died in 1913 while on vacation. Lilly Anheuser's parents had built a mausoleum at Bellefontaine Cemetery, but she felt that Adolphus needed something grander. She tore down the original structure and had the other family members reinterred outside. She had Thomas P. Barnett design a new mausoleum in the Bavarian Gothic style. Constructed using unpolished red Missouri granite and completed in 1921, the new building cost $250,000 (equivalent to $2.8 million today). The mausoleum has a gray-green slate roof topped with a copper spire, ornate finials, and engraved grape vines representing both Adolphus' birthplace in German wine country and his favorite beverage. The bronze doors are topped with hop flower embellishments. The structure features elaborate stained glass panels, and thus resembles a small church. Julius Caesar's words "Veni, Vidi, Vici," or "I came, I saw, I conquered" are inscribed above the entrance. Lilly died of a heart attack and pneumonia on February 17, 1928, in Pasadena, California. Her body was brought back to St. Louis and was buried beside her husband. Forty breweries existed in St. Louis when Eberhardt Anheuser bought, before the Civil War, the Bavarian Brewery. His daughter, Lilly, married Adolphus Busch who sold supplies to the brewery. After the Civil War, Busch joined his father-in-law in the brewing business. Carl Conrad, a native of Budweis, Bavaria, was Busch’s good friend who developed a formula for a new, light lager beer. #Busch #AdolphusBusch Adolphus Busch and Busch Mausoleum