Much a-brew about nothing: The curious history of Tower Plaza
Downtown at the corner of Second and Marquette, you'll find a strange looking building. It has a two-story base, a 67-foot windowless tower, and a tall antenna on top, and is currently painted bright purple with a floral design. It's eye-catching, for sure, but what is it? The name, Tower Plaza, doesn't offer many clues. If you guessed it's an apartment building, that’s a strange guess, because it doesn't look anything like an apartment building, but you'd be right. It has had a lot of other lives before becoming an apartment building, though. The building's whole history spans nearly 100 years and includes everything from Nazis to (indirectly) Elvis, so you know it's going to be a wild ride.
Our story starts in 1922, when a guy named Moses R. Buchanan (1885-1965)1 came to Albuquerque from El Paso to start the Albuquerque Ice Company.2 In January, 1923, the company started building "the most up-to-date ice manufacturing plant in the Southwest" at Second and Marquette.3,4 The plant opened in May, just in time for summer,5 and ran around the clock churning out 25 tons of ice a day.6 Like at other ice plants at the time, ice was produced in 300-pound "cans" which were filled with water and then submerged in a brine tank. The brine was chilled by a refrigeration system and the cans were left in the tank until they were fully frozen, which would take about 48 hours. The Albuquerque Ice plant had a single tank with 396 cans, so it could produce about 60 tons in a batch. Once the ice was frozen, it was stored in a refrigerated warehouse and sawed into 8- to 100-pound blocks as needed. Customers could have the ice delivered to their home or pick it up themselves at a drive-up platform.7,8
Business was good at first—at the time, almost everybody used ice at home to keep their food cold—but change was coming. In-home refrigerators were already available, and were getting cheaper every year. In 1922, a Frigidaire refrigerator sold for $714,9 which was about double the cost of a standard Model T Ford,10 but by 1926 it was just $245.11 Faced with this rising competition, the Albuquerque Ice Company advertised relentlessly with messages like "Don't be fooled! Ice refrigeration costs less"12 and even joined with other ice industry interests around the country to promote Ice Refrigerator Month every March.13 The company also tried to diversify as much as possible, branching out into coal, bottled water, and cold storage. But the ice side of the business was struggling.
In 1928, Albuquerque Ice completed a merger with its main competitor, Western Ice, which gave it a monopoly on ice production in the city.14,15 This made it easier to stay in business, but Buchanan could see the way things were going. After a decade of strenuously insisting that ice was superior, he left the company in 1933 to start a new, traitorous business: selling refrigerators.16 The Albuquerque Ice Company remained in business until around 1960—people still needed ice, after all, just not in the same quantities as before. But the company really didn't need two separate factories a few blocks apart. They kept the old Western Ice plant and closed the one at Second and Marquette. As for Buchanan, he stayed in the appliance business until 1954, by which time he was running a chain of stores around the city. When he retired, he handed over the company to his young protege Harry E. Kinney, who would go on to be Mayor of Albuquerque in the 1970s and 80s.17
In 1934-35, the Albuquerque Ice plant was leased by FERA, one of President Roosevelt's New Deal programs. Part of the agency's mandate was providing food to needy families, and they had a huge excess of meat they needed to store until it could be distributed. The cold storage equipment at the ice plant enabled them to freeze the meat, which a spokesman for the project somewhat optimistically claimed would preserve it for 20 to 30 years.18 Within two months, the facility was storing over 3,000 frozen cows and sheep.19 Unfortunately (but in typical Albuquerque fashion), thieves broke in and made off with over 1,000 pounds of meat in the great frozen beef heist of '35.20
Apart from the Depression, other changes were brewing in the mid 1930s with the end of Prohibition—pun very much intended. An Albuquerque brewery was first proposed in September 1933, before Prohibition was even lifted.21 Those plans came to nothing, but in 1936, it was announced that the former Albuquerque Ice plant was being converted into a brewery at a cost of $45,000.22 This was a logical use for the property since the refrigeration equipment needed for making lager, which was the dominant beer style at the time, was already in place. In fact, Albuquerque Ice's old competitor Western Ice had made the same transition, but in reverse. It started as the Southwestern Brewery and Ice Company but was forced to abandon the beer portion of the business due to Prohibition.
The new brewery was called the New Mexico Brewing Company and its brewmaster was Oskar S. Scholz (1892-1965). Most sources identified him as Austrian, but he was actually from the German-speaking border region of Czechoslovakia (aka the Sudetenland of World War II infamy), which at the time of his birth was part of Austria-Hungary.23,24 Scholz had an impressive resume; he had a degree in chemistry and had worked for two famous Czech breweries, Pilsner Urquell and Budweiser Budvar.25 After arriving in the United States around 1933, he basically became an itinerant brewmaster, traveling around to set up breweries in Phoenix, El Paso, and Idaho Falls before he arrived in Albuquerque.25,26,27 The El Paso Herald-Post described him as a "ponderous, bespectacled man who prowls about the new brewery in a long white coat and with rubbers on his shoes."28
In July 1936, it was announced that brewing had begun and beer would be on the market in about 40 days.29 Forty-five days later, an advertisement in the Journal proclaimed that "Scholz Beer is just around the corner! For months it has been in the making—brewing from choicest imported hops and malt, ageing in light-proof vats in Albuquerque's own brewery—and this week it will be ready for you."30 Finally, that Friday, another ad triumphantly proclaimed "Albuquerque's Own Beer, Here at last!"31 Readers were told to "ask for it at your favorite dealer's", but there was a problem: the beer wasn't actually available. The brewery was forced to apologize for "unforeseen mechanical difficulties" but promised the beer would be available on Monday instead.32
It wasn't an auspicious beginning, and things didn't get much better once the beer was on the market. The brewery owners seemed to be a little out of their depth. When they wanted to buy a bottling line, they placed classified ads in various cities apparently hoping someone had one just lying around. In Los Angeles, the ad ran right above "free dirt wanted" and was probably given the same level of attention.33 Back at home, the company held a stock sale to raise money for the equipment,34 urging potential investors to "come to the brewery, inspect the plant and examine the books as to the possible earnings on your money."35 If anyone actually did, they would have seen that the business was in the hole to the tune of $28,000 and its creditors, mainly local suppliers like J. C. Baldridge Lumber, Albuquerque Lumber, New Mexico Tank and Culvert, and General Welding Works, were rapidly losing their patience. Just two weeks later, the brewery was placed in receivership.36
The receiver's first priority was to dispose of the brewery's most liquid asset (pun intended again), about 1,000 barrels of beer that were currently on hand. Unfortunately, most of the beer went bad before it could be sold. "At least," the Journal reported, "Dr. John D. Clark, University chemist, said it was full of bacteria and unfit for human consumption, and numerous persons who claimed to be able to qualify as expert beer-drinkers declared it was unpalatable." The only solution was dumping it all into the gutter. The Journal continued: "Fish in the Rio Grande, and a crowd of spectators, probably were reminded of prohibition days… The Rio Grande may not be a navigable stream, but if you went down there Sunday, you probably could see the equivalent of a thousand schooners floating on its sandy bosom."37 The only other hope for the creditors to recoup some of their money was the brewery itself, so it was ordered to be auctioned off.38
Scholz left town and was not heard from again, at least until 1946, when the War Department released a list of Nazi party members compiled from records seized in Germany. Scholz was on the list with membership number 1327489, which probably won't come as a surprise to anyone who noticed his Hitler mustache in the photo.39 The Santa Fe New Mexican reported, perhaps a little smugly, "Albuquerque Man Listed as Nazi",40 while the Albuquerque papers unsurprisingly stayed silent. But Scholz himself doesn't seem to have ever faced any repercussions; he spent most of the rest of his career working for Anheuser-Busch and then retired in Arizona. When he died, his obituary wrongly gave his age as 77 rather than 73, suggesting he may have fudged his birth date to avoid detection.24
The new owner of the brewery was Baron Paul C. von Gontard (1897-1951),41 who got it for an absolute steal at $7,00042 (about 10% of the appraised value).36 Von Gontard was an aristocrat from one of Germany's wealthiest families (though technically the German nobility had been abolished in 1918), an avid polo player, big-game hunter, and self-styled "explorer", and he came from brewing royalty: his maternal grandfather was Adolphus Busch, the co-founder of Anheuser-Busch.43 Before coming to Albuquerque he was president of the General Brewing Company in San Francisco, which he helped establish.44
Von Gontard spent $110,000 remodeling and expanding the brewery and renamed it the Rio Grande Brewing Corporation.45 The new brewmaster was Max Leischner (1885-1961), who lived in Oregon before and after his stint in New Mexico.46 Oddly, he was born just 15 miles from Oskar Scholz in the same region of Moravia, but as far as I can tell he wasn't a Nazi.47 The brewery's first product, a pilsner called Rio Grande Lager, was released on October 5, 1937.48 According to the ads, it was "hearty as the west" with "a richness and at the same time a delicacy of flavor that brings delight to the most educated palate."49 Von Gontard promoted the new brew with an old-fashioned covered wagon pulled by a six-ox team which made appearances in various cities including Santa Fe, Clovis, and Amarillo.50 This seems to have been his go-to marketing ploy: he had previously used a team of six white horses to advertise General Brewing,51 and probably got that idea from his cousin August A. Busch, Jr.'s Budweiser Clydesdales, which debuted in 1933.52
Von Gontard's big investment meant the company was able to spend more on marketing and equipment than New Mexico Brewing had. This meant that, unlike its predecessor, Rio Grande Brewing was able to reach the milestone of selling beer in bottles. In November, 1937, the brewery installed a new $35,000 bottling line which was capable of filling 700 cases of beer a day.53 An ad for the new bottled Rio Grande Lager exhorted "Try It Today… You'll agree that all the time, patience and money invested has been justified by the superb results… and you'll order it by the case to have it always ready at home".54 Surviving labels and bottles indicate that some of the brewery's other products included Vaquero, La Bonita, Bock, and Double Strength Bavarian Winter Beer.55
The brewery had some initial success; an ad from 1938 boasted that "the demand for Rio Grande Lager, New Mexico’s own beer, has increased our sales more than 300% already this year."56 But after von Gontard stepped down as president sometime in 1938 or 1939, things went off the rails. In May 1939 the brewery declared bankruptcy, reporting $120,000 in debt and $3.96 cash on hand. One of the many people who were owed was R. L. Harrison, the heavy equipment dealer who featured in my post about the Orpheum Theater.57 After the business shut down, it would be 49 years before another brewery opened in New Mexico, but the industry has exploded since then, with 88 breweries operating in the state as of 2019.58 Von Gontard moved to St. Louis, but his son Adolphus later returned to New Mexico and lived in Santa Fe until he vanished under mysterious circumstances in 1981.59
The brewery sat empty for a few years until the brewing equipment was dismantled and removed in 1942.60 At this point, Albuquerque Ice, which still owned the building, had no further use for it. It ended up being sold in 1943 to two guys named Phillip Schumacher and Loyal Betty (yes, really) who remodeled it for their business, Automotive Warehouse Service. The Journal reported that the company "handles replacement parts on a wholesale basis, and operates a large machine shop."61 Apparently there was still some room left in the building, so Betty and Schumacher converted it into office space around 1946-47.62 They also gave it a more marketable name, the Tower Building, presumably because it was a building with a tower. The first major occupant was the U.S. Forest Service, which gradually consolidated its offices there between 1947 and 1951.63,64 Other early tenants included the Albuquerque Community Chest65 and the first local office of the Camp Fire Girls scouting organization, which Schumacher helped set up.66
The building picked up another interesting tenant in 1953: a new radio station, KDEF. This might seem like a strange use for the former ice plant, but actually the thick cork insulation in the walls probably made the place pretty soundproof, and the tall tower was a good place to mount an antenna. KDEF was established by Frank Quinn, who used to be the manager of KOB in the 1940s, and started broadcasting on September 6, 1953 at 1280 kHz on the AM dial.67,68 This was only the city's fifth commercial radio station, so it was a pretty big deal. A schedule from the first week of broadcasting shows that programming ran from 7 am to 6 pm, featuring a mix of music, Spanish-language content, and sports, with news at the top of each hour.69
The lunchtime slot was filled by a request show called the People's Choice, but within a few months it would be taken over by a young DJ named Bill Previtti. He quickly became one of the city's best known radio personalities and was reportedly one of the first to embrace rock and roll, even though Quinn wouldn't let him play it at first.70 A Journal article from 1956 shows just how controversial the music was at the time. Interviewees complained of fights and assorted juvenile delinquency at rock and roll events, with one anonymous social worker opining that "The beat excites the youngsters to the point where they lose their inhibitions and sometimes their restraint."71 But Previtti, only a couple of years removed from being a teenager himself, was on board with it. He continued to advocate for the city's teens later in his career too, including helping to legalize underage dance clubs, long banned by city ordinance, in the 1960s.72,73
The city's more established radio men bristled at Previtti's zany persona, on-air goofs, and teen-friendly playlists, but eventually were forced to accept that this was the future. One of his rivals, Al Kurman, recalled in a 1987 interview, "In those days I was part of the conservative, traditional establishment stations that were not youth-oriented. We were very standoffish from the rock 'n' roll movement. … A teen-age novelty tune like "Aba Daba Honeymoon" was almost too hot for us. I won't say Previtti was fashioned after Alan Freed, but his style and persona were just kind of jarring to us who were establishment. I think you can credit him for what he did. Previtti was certainly a trend setter."70 After his time at KDEF, Previtti bounced around various broadcasting jobs and spent some time as Governor David Cargo's press secretary74 before briefly returning to KDEF as station manager in the 1980s.75 As far as I can tell he is still alive, but retired.
In addition to broadcasting on both radio and TV, Previtti was also an MC for local performances and was reportedly the man who introduced Elvis at the Armory in 1956. In his own version of events, "Previtti brought Presley on stage with a couple of jokes and an introduction along the lines of 'Here's a young man you're going to hear a lot about because this guy…'" before being drowned out by screaming. He also claimed to have taken Elvis out for a milkshake at the Pay Less drugstore after the show.70 All of this should be taken with a grain of salt, of course. Previtti was recalling the events 30 years later and had some key details wrong, like the year of the show and who the headliner was (though I think the fault for those errors lay with the research done by the Journal rather than him). But who could resist embellishing their Elvis story a little?
Back at the Tower Building, things were looking pretty empty after the Forest Service moved out in 1960. With 60% of the building now vacant, Schumacher and Betty took the opportunity to remodel it again, freshening up the office space with new carpet and lights and affixing what they probably thought were some very modern-looking aluminum panels all over the outside. It was also renamed again, this time to Tower Plaza (much classier).76 Over the years, the building hosted all kinds of tenants—everything from the state Democratic Party headquarters77 to the Institute of Therapeutic Hypnosis.78 There were also quite a few half-baked startup companies, like Brewmaster Inc., which marketed an electronically metered beer tap that was intended to "keep bartender[s] honest".79 The company managed to get some of their units installed in the Astrodome for testing, but then went out of business almost immediately.80 It was like the Scholz Beer debacle all over again.
By the 1980s, Tower Plaza was looking pretty rough. KDEF had moved out in 1975,81 and the broken remnants of the station's neon sign were unceremoniously removed from the roof in 1982.82 In 1986, when the city was trying to find a site for the proposed convention center hotel which would eventually become the Hyatt Regency, Tower Plaza was the number one choice.83 The only obstacle was one stubborn old lady: Lela Ray Schumacher (1898-1991),84 the 85-year-old widow of Phillip Schumacher, who owned the building and lived in the penthouse apartment. She told the Journal, "This is my home and I intend to live here the rest of my life. I've lived here more than 20 years. My health isn't good, and I'm just not interested in selling."85 Try as they might, the city could not persuade her to budge, and consequently the building is still with us today.
Sometime in the 1990s, the building was converted from offices to apartments. This seems like a strange choice for an ex-industrial building with only a few small windows, but it's been working for more than 20 years, so who am I to judge? According to the former property manager's site, the units, which were referred to rather euphemistically as "lofts", range from one to three bedrooms. "If you are looking for a funky and unique residence then this is the building for you. Our tenants tend to fall in love with this quirky building and you will too!"86 The aluminum panels were removed from the lower part of the building but are still on the tower, as is the old KDEF antenna.
Visually, the building got a huge upgrade in 2017 when Argentinean muralist Francisco Díaz, aka Pastel, was commissioned by 516 ARTS to paint the building. Instead of the previous dull brown, he wrapped the south and west walls of the building in a bold, colorful design depicting a variety of native flowers and plants. He described his work as "urban acupuncture", "like putting some needles in the city and trying to make it better." It was definitely a success; I never would have guessed the building could be improved so much just by getting a new paint job. At the time the mural was painted, the building was reportedly "being converted to a home for art studios and residential spaces with a gallery and collaborative studio."87 I'm not sure what the status of those plans are, but it seems like a good idea. The old ice factory surely has more adventures still ahead of it.
Sources
1. "Moses Ridley Buchanan." Findagrave.com.
2. "New Ice Plant Will Be Built in Albuquerque." Albuquerque Journal, December 17, 1922. Via Newspapers.com.
3. "Work Is Started on New Building of the Albuquerque Ice Co." Albuquerque Journal, January 9, 1923. Via Newspapers.com.
4. "A New Ice Plant Albuquerque May Well Be Proud Of" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, April 5, 1923. Via Newspapers.com.
5. "Ice" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, May 20, 1923. Via Newspapers.com.
6. "Albuquerque Mar. 1924, Sheet 11." Sanborn Map Company via Digital Sanborn Maps.
7. "Raw Water Ice Plant of the Albuquerque Ice Co." Ice and Refrigeration, Volume 46, Issue 1 (January 1924), pp. 80-81. Via Google Books.
8. "Freezing Water Is Only Part of Ice Business." Albuquerque Journal, September 29, 1957. Via Newspapers.com.
9. Best, Michael. The New Competition: Institutions of Industrial Restructuring. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990, p. 68.
10. "Reduced Prices" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, January 22, 1922. Via Newspapers.com.
11. "Frigidaire" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, March 25, 1926. Via Newspapers.com.
12. "Don't be fooled!" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, April 1, 1931. Via Newspapers.com.
13. "March Is Ice Refrigerator Month" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, March 11, 1929. Via Newspapers.com.
14. "Announcement" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, April 4, 1928. Via Newspapers.com.
15. Hudspeth Directory Company's Albuquerque City Directory 1930. El Paso: Hudspeth Directory Company, 1930, p. 652. Via Ancestry Library.
16. "Refrigeration Store Opened by Buchanan." Albuquerque Journal, July 19, 1933. Via Newspapers.com.
17. "Appliance Man Retires Here After 31 Years." Albuquerque Journal, March 14, 1954. Via Newspapers.com.
18. "FERA Leases Ice Plant Here for Freezing Beef." Albuquerque Journal, August 30, 1934. Via Newspapers.com.
19. "Hides and Pelts Pour in to Storage in FERA Warehouse." Albuquerque Journal, October 27, 1934. Via Newspapers.com.
20. "10 Quarters of Beef Stolen From Relief Storage Plant." Albuquerque Journal, March 10, 1935. Via Newspapers.com.
21. "$300,000 Brewery Plant to Employ 100 Persons to be Started in 30 Days." Albuquerque Journal, September 23, 1933. Via Newspapers.com.
22. "Old Ice Plant Is Remodeled for a Brewery." Albuquerque Journal, April 11, 1936. Via Newspapers.com.
23. Declaration of Intention: Oskar S. Scholz. Via Ancestry Library.
24. "Oskar S. Scholz." Arizona Republic, August 4, 1965. Via Newspapers.com.
25. "Brewery Will Operate Soon." Idaho Falls Post-Register, May 8, 1935. Via Newspapers.com.
26. "Brewing Plant Built At Cost Of $125,000." Arizona Republic, November 13, 1933. Via Newspapers.com.
27. "Supervises Brewing Of Mitchell Beer." El Paso Times, November 21, 1934. Via Newspapers.com.
28. "Beer Without Headaches Pride of this Brewmaster." El Paso Herald-Post, November 21, 1934. Via Newspapers.com.
29. "Brewing of Beer Begins At New Plant Here." Albuquerque Journal, July 26, 1936. Via Newspapers.com.
30. "It Won't Be Long Now!" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, September 9, 1936. Via Newspapers.com.
31. "Albuquerque's Own Beer" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, September 11, 1936. Via Newspapers.com.
32. "Notice" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, September 14, 1936. Via Newspapers.com.
33. "Wants of All Kinds" (advertisement). Los Angeles Times, November 28, 1936. Via Newspapers.com.
34. "Bottling Plant Here." Albuquerque Journal, December 10, 1936. Via Newspapers.com.
35. "An Open Letter to the Citizens of the State of New Mexico" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, January 3, 1937. Via Newspapers.com.
36. "Land Named Receiver For Brewing Concern." Albuquerque Journal, January 19, 1937. Via Newspapers.com.
37. "Albuquerque Wisecracks As Gutters Run With Beer." Albuquerque Journal, March 7, 1937. Via Newspapers.com.
38. "Brewery Ordered Sold At Auction February 17." Albuquerque Journal, January 30, 1937. Via Newspapers.com.
39. Nazi Party Membership Records, Part 3. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, December 1946. Via ProQuest Congressional.
40. "Albuquerque Man Listed as Nazi." Santa Fe New Mexican, March 1, 1947. Via Newspapers.com.
41. Paul Von Gontard via MyHeritage.com.
42. "Will Enlarge Brewery Here." Albuquerque Journal, February 24, 1937. Via Newspapers.com.
43. "Paul Von Gontard Arrested in Berlin on Finance Charge." St. Louis Globe-Democrat, March 16, 1933. Via Newspapers.com.
44. "4 S. M. Men in Brewing Firm." San Mateo Times, March 31, 1934. Via Newspapers.com.
45. "Brewery Will Spend $110,000." Albuquerque Journal, May 7, 1937. Via Newspapers.com.
46. "Max Leischner." Medford Mail Tribune, May 10, 1961. Via Newspapers.com.
47. United States Passport Applications: Max Leischner via MyHeritage.com.
48. "Reward for Months of Waiting" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, October 5, 1937. Via Newspapers.com.
49. "Hearty as the West" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, October 8, 1937. Via Newspapers.com.
50. "Old Time Ox Team Here." Santa Fe New Mexican, September 25, 1937. Via Newspapers.com.
51. "Baron and Baroness Paul von Gontard Plan Dinner to Welcome Hunters Back." San Francisco Examiner, June 16, 1934. Via Newspapers.com.
52. Clydesdales, American Icons. Budweiser.
53. "Brewery Installs $35,000 Bottle Line." Albuquerque Journal, November 14, 1937. Via Newspapers.com.
54. "Here It Is at Last!" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, October 23, 1937. Via Newspapers.com.
55. Kerschner, Keith. "Albuquerque Breweries Post-Prohibition." Brewery Collectibles Club of America.
56. "New Mexicans Will Be Proud" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, May 16, 1938. Via Newspapers.com.
57. "Brewery Company Seeks Bankruptcy." Albuquerque Journal, May 12, 1939. Via Newspapers.com.
58. "The Ultimate Craft Beer Guide to New Mexico." New Mexico Magazine.
59. "Where's Adolph?" St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 16, 1982. Via Newspapers.com.
60. "Old Brewery Here Being Dismantled." Albuquerque Journal, November 9, 1942. Via Newspapers.com.
61. "Automotive Warehouse Co. Completing Extensive Remodeling Job at Plant." Albuquerque Journal, July 8, 1944. Via Newspapers.com.
62. "The Larger Building Permits, Feb. 15 Through April 14, 1946." Albuquerque Progress, Volume 13, Issue 5, May 1946, p. 11.
63. "Forest Office Occupy Tower Building Here." Albuquerque Journal, May 7, 1947. Via Newspapers.com.
64. "Forest Service Moves Tomorrow." Albuquerque Journal, July 31, 1951. Via Newspapers.com.
65. "Community Chest Moves Offices To Tower Building." Albuquerque Journal, July 30, 1952. Via Newspapers.com.
66. "Camp Fire Girls, Chest Agency, Teach Loyalty." Albuquerque Journal, September 14, 1952. Via Newspapers.com.
67. "Station KDEF To Go on Air Here on Sept. 6." Albuquerque Journal, August 25, 1953. Via Newspapers.com.
68. "New Radio Station KDEF Begins Broadcasting Today." Albuquerque Journal, September 6, 1953. Via Newspapers.com.
69. "KDEF" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, September 7, 1953. Via Newspapers.com.
70. Groves, Bob. "Beeper and the Hillbilly Cat." Albuquerque Journal, August 11, 1987. Via Newspapers.com.
71. McCarty, Frankie. "Rock 'n' Roll Is Difficult To Describe But Rhythm Keeps Teenagers Jumpin'." Albuquerque Journal, August 5, 1956. Via Newspapers.com.
72. "Teenage Dance Support Group To Meet Today." Albuquerque Journal, July 28, 1965. Via Newspapers.com.
73. "First Teen Dance Permit." Albuquerque Journal, December 10, 1965. Via Newspapers.com.
74. "Cullin Expected To Get Press Job." Albuquerque Journal, December 20, 1967. Via Newspapers.com.
75. "KDEF Names New Manager." Albuquerque Journal, November 8, 1984. Via Newspapers.com.
76. "Tower Building Here Scheduled for Remodeling." Albuquerque Journal, May 26, 1960. Via Newspapers.com.
77. Beier, Robert V. "County Democrats Prepare All-Out Effort for Election." Albuquerque Journal, July 15, 1982. Via Newspapers.com.
78. "Institute of Therapeutic Hypnosis" (advertisement). Albuquerque Journal, March 24, 1963. Via Newspapers.com.
79. Cliff, W. Wilson. "Metering Beer Tap Marketed." Albuquerque Journal, March 1, 1970. Via Newspapers.com.
80. "The Daily Record: District Court." Albuquerque Journal, June 30, 1970. Via Newspapers.com.
81. "KDEF Plans Move to Plaza." Albuquerque Journal, January 26, 1975. Via Newspapers.com.
82. "Cleaning Up the View." Albuquerque Journal, August 25, 1982. Via Newspapers.com.
83. Martin, Jim. "City Rules Out Former YMCA as Hotel Site." Albuquerque Journal, February 22, 1986. Via Newspapers.com.
84. "Lela Ray Miller Schumacher." Findagrave.com.
85. "This Luxury Hotel Site Owner Plans to Stay Put." Albuquerque Journal, January 12, 1986. Via Newspapers.com.
86. "Tower Plaza." Kachina Properties. Via Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
87. Roberts, Kathaleen. "Wallflowers." Albuquerque Journal, March 20, 2017. Via Newspapers.com.
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| Tower Plaza building, c. 2018. Via Realtor.com. |
Our story starts in 1922, when a guy named Moses R. Buchanan (1885-1965)1 came to Albuquerque from El Paso to start the Albuquerque Ice Company.2 In January, 1923, the company started building "the most up-to-date ice manufacturing plant in the Southwest" at Second and Marquette.3,4 The plant opened in May, just in time for summer,5 and ran around the clock churning out 25 tons of ice a day.6 Like at other ice plants at the time, ice was produced in 300-pound "cans" which were filled with water and then submerged in a brine tank. The brine was chilled by a refrigeration system and the cans were left in the tank until they were fully frozen, which would take about 48 hours. The Albuquerque Ice plant had a single tank with 396 cans, so it could produce about 60 tons in a batch. Once the ice was frozen, it was stored in a refrigerated warehouse and sawed into 8- to 100-pound blocks as needed. Customers could have the ice delivered to their home or pick it up themselves at a drive-up platform.7,8
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| The ice plant shortly after opening in 1923. The concrete ice storage tower was still under construction. Ice and Refrigeration via Google Books. |
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| The inside of the plant, showing the compressor unit for the refrigeration system. Ice and Refrigeration via Google Books. |
Business was good at first—at the time, almost everybody used ice at home to keep their food cold—but change was coming. In-home refrigerators were already available, and were getting cheaper every year. In 1922, a Frigidaire refrigerator sold for $714,9 which was about double the cost of a standard Model T Ford,10 but by 1926 it was just $245.11 Faced with this rising competition, the Albuquerque Ice Company advertised relentlessly with messages like "Don't be fooled! Ice refrigeration costs less"12 and even joined with other ice industry interests around the country to promote Ice Refrigerator Month every March.13 The company also tried to diversify as much as possible, branching out into coal, bottled water, and cold storage. But the ice side of the business was struggling.
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| Albuquerque Ice Company, c. 1930. Via New Mexico Digital Collections. |
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| Delivery trucks at the company’s loading dock, c. 1930. Via New Mexico Digital Collections. |
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| Ad for Albuquerque Ice Company side by side with its competition, 1930. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
In 1928, Albuquerque Ice completed a merger with its main competitor, Western Ice, which gave it a monopoly on ice production in the city.14,15 This made it easier to stay in business, but Buchanan could see the way things were going. After a decade of strenuously insisting that ice was superior, he left the company in 1933 to start a new, traitorous business: selling refrigerators.16 The Albuquerque Ice Company remained in business until around 1960—people still needed ice, after all, just not in the same quantities as before. But the company really didn't need two separate factories a few blocks apart. They kept the old Western Ice plant and closed the one at Second and Marquette. As for Buchanan, he stayed in the appliance business until 1954, by which time he was running a chain of stores around the city. When he retired, he handed over the company to his young protege Harry E. Kinney, who would go on to be Mayor of Albuquerque in the 1970s and 80s.17
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| M. R. Buchanan (right) with Harry E. Kinney in 1954. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
In 1934-35, the Albuquerque Ice plant was leased by FERA, one of President Roosevelt's New Deal programs. Part of the agency's mandate was providing food to needy families, and they had a huge excess of meat they needed to store until it could be distributed. The cold storage equipment at the ice plant enabled them to freeze the meat, which a spokesman for the project somewhat optimistically claimed would preserve it for 20 to 30 years.18 Within two months, the facility was storing over 3,000 frozen cows and sheep.19 Unfortunately (but in typical Albuquerque fashion), thieves broke in and made off with over 1,000 pounds of meat in the great frozen beef heist of '35.20
Apart from the Depression, other changes were brewing in the mid 1930s with the end of Prohibition—pun very much intended. An Albuquerque brewery was first proposed in September 1933, before Prohibition was even lifted.21 Those plans came to nothing, but in 1936, it was announced that the former Albuquerque Ice plant was being converted into a brewery at a cost of $45,000.22 This was a logical use for the property since the refrigeration equipment needed for making lager, which was the dominant beer style at the time, was already in place. In fact, Albuquerque Ice's old competitor Western Ice had made the same transition, but in reverse. It started as the Southwestern Brewery and Ice Company but was forced to abandon the beer portion of the business due to Prohibition.
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| The building in the process of being converted to a brewery, May 1936. Albuquerque Progress via New Mexico Digital Collections. |
The new brewery was called the New Mexico Brewing Company and its brewmaster was Oskar S. Scholz (1892-1965). Most sources identified him as Austrian, but he was actually from the German-speaking border region of Czechoslovakia (aka the Sudetenland of World War II infamy), which at the time of his birth was part of Austria-Hungary.23,24 Scholz had an impressive resume; he had a degree in chemistry and had worked for two famous Czech breweries, Pilsner Urquell and Budweiser Budvar.25 After arriving in the United States around 1933, he basically became an itinerant brewmaster, traveling around to set up breweries in Phoenix, El Paso, and Idaho Falls before he arrived in Albuquerque.25,26,27 The El Paso Herald-Post described him as a "ponderous, bespectacled man who prowls about the new brewery in a long white coat and with rubbers on his shoes."28
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| Oskar Scholz in 1934 while working at the Harry Mitchell Brewery in El Paso. El Paso Times via Newspapers.com. |
In July 1936, it was announced that brewing had begun and beer would be on the market in about 40 days.29 Forty-five days later, an advertisement in the Journal proclaimed that "Scholz Beer is just around the corner! For months it has been in the making—brewing from choicest imported hops and malt, ageing in light-proof vats in Albuquerque's own brewery—and this week it will be ready for you."30 Finally, that Friday, another ad triumphantly proclaimed "Albuquerque's Own Beer, Here at last!"31 Readers were told to "ask for it at your favorite dealer's", but there was a problem: the beer wasn't actually available. The brewery was forced to apologize for "unforeseen mechanical difficulties" but promised the beer would be available on Monday instead.32
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| Ad for Scholz Beer, 1936. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
It wasn't an auspicious beginning, and things didn't get much better once the beer was on the market. The brewery owners seemed to be a little out of their depth. When they wanted to buy a bottling line, they placed classified ads in various cities apparently hoping someone had one just lying around. In Los Angeles, the ad ran right above "free dirt wanted" and was probably given the same level of attention.33 Back at home, the company held a stock sale to raise money for the equipment,34 urging potential investors to "come to the brewery, inspect the plant and examine the books as to the possible earnings on your money."35 If anyone actually did, they would have seen that the business was in the hole to the tune of $28,000 and its creditors, mainly local suppliers like J. C. Baldridge Lumber, Albuquerque Lumber, New Mexico Tank and Culvert, and General Welding Works, were rapidly losing their patience. Just two weeks later, the brewery was placed in receivership.36
The receiver's first priority was to dispose of the brewery's most liquid asset (pun intended again), about 1,000 barrels of beer that were currently on hand. Unfortunately, most of the beer went bad before it could be sold. "At least," the Journal reported, "Dr. John D. Clark, University chemist, said it was full of bacteria and unfit for human consumption, and numerous persons who claimed to be able to qualify as expert beer-drinkers declared it was unpalatable." The only solution was dumping it all into the gutter. The Journal continued: "Fish in the Rio Grande, and a crowd of spectators, probably were reminded of prohibition days… The Rio Grande may not be a navigable stream, but if you went down there Sunday, you probably could see the equivalent of a thousand schooners floating on its sandy bosom."37 The only other hope for the creditors to recoup some of their money was the brewery itself, so it was ordered to be auctioned off.38
Scholz left town and was not heard from again, at least until 1946, when the War Department released a list of Nazi party members compiled from records seized in Germany. Scholz was on the list with membership number 1327489, which probably won't come as a surprise to anyone who noticed his Hitler mustache in the photo.39 The Santa Fe New Mexican reported, perhaps a little smugly, "Albuquerque Man Listed as Nazi",40 while the Albuquerque papers unsurprisingly stayed silent. But Scholz himself doesn't seem to have ever faced any repercussions; he spent most of the rest of his career working for Anheuser-Busch and then retired in Arizona. When he died, his obituary wrongly gave his age as 77 rather than 73, suggesting he may have fudged his birth date to avoid detection.24
The new owner of the brewery was Baron Paul C. von Gontard (1897-1951),41 who got it for an absolute steal at $7,00042 (about 10% of the appraised value).36 Von Gontard was an aristocrat from one of Germany's wealthiest families (though technically the German nobility had been abolished in 1918), an avid polo player, big-game hunter, and self-styled "explorer", and he came from brewing royalty: his maternal grandfather was Adolphus Busch, the co-founder of Anheuser-Busch.43 Before coming to Albuquerque he was president of the General Brewing Company in San Francisco, which he helped establish.44
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| Paul C. von Gontard with his wife Consuelo in 1932. San Francisco Examiner via Newspapers.com. |
Von Gontard spent $110,000 remodeling and expanding the brewery and renamed it the Rio Grande Brewing Corporation.45 The new brewmaster was Max Leischner (1885-1961), who lived in Oregon before and after his stint in New Mexico.46 Oddly, he was born just 15 miles from Oskar Scholz in the same region of Moravia, but as far as I can tell he wasn't a Nazi.47 The brewery's first product, a pilsner called Rio Grande Lager, was released on October 5, 1937.48 According to the ads, it was "hearty as the west" with "a richness and at the same time a delicacy of flavor that brings delight to the most educated palate."49 Von Gontard promoted the new brew with an old-fashioned covered wagon pulled by a six-ox team which made appearances in various cities including Santa Fe, Clovis, and Amarillo.50 This seems to have been his go-to marketing ploy: he had previously used a team of six white horses to advertise General Brewing,51 and probably got that idea from his cousin August A. Busch, Jr.'s Budweiser Clydesdales, which debuted in 1933.52
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| The brewery shortly after it opened in 1937. Via Brewery Collectibles Club of America. |
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| Centerfold spread depicting the new brewery from Albuquerque Progress, 1937. Via New Mexico Digital Collections. |
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| Ad for Rio Grande Lager featuring Brewmaster Max Leischner, 1937. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
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| Not exactly the Clydesdales, 1937. Via New Mexico Digital Collections. |
Von Gontard's big investment meant the company was able to spend more on marketing and equipment than New Mexico Brewing had. This meant that, unlike its predecessor, Rio Grande Brewing was able to reach the milestone of selling beer in bottles. In November, 1937, the brewery installed a new $35,000 bottling line which was capable of filling 700 cases of beer a day.53 An ad for the new bottled Rio Grande Lager exhorted "Try It Today… You'll agree that all the time, patience and money invested has been justified by the superb results… and you'll order it by the case to have it always ready at home".54 Surviving labels and bottles indicate that some of the brewery's other products included Vaquero, La Bonita, Bock, and Double Strength Bavarian Winter Beer.55
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| Rio Grande Brewing’s new bottling line, 1937. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
The brewery had some initial success; an ad from 1938 boasted that "the demand for Rio Grande Lager, New Mexico’s own beer, has increased our sales more than 300% already this year."56 But after von Gontard stepped down as president sometime in 1938 or 1939, things went off the rails. In May 1939 the brewery declared bankruptcy, reporting $120,000 in debt and $3.96 cash on hand. One of the many people who were owed was R. L. Harrison, the heavy equipment dealer who featured in my post about the Orpheum Theater.57 After the business shut down, it would be 49 years before another brewery opened in New Mexico, but the industry has exploded since then, with 88 breweries operating in the state as of 2019.58 Von Gontard moved to St. Louis, but his son Adolphus later returned to New Mexico and lived in Santa Fe until he vanished under mysterious circumstances in 1981.59
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| The layout of the vacant brewery as shown on the 1942 Sanborn map. Via Digital Sanborn Maps, full sheet available. |
The brewery sat empty for a few years until the brewing equipment was dismantled and removed in 1942.60 At this point, Albuquerque Ice, which still owned the building, had no further use for it. It ended up being sold in 1943 to two guys named Phillip Schumacher and Loyal Betty (yes, really) who remodeled it for their business, Automotive Warehouse Service. The Journal reported that the company "handles replacement parts on a wholesale basis, and operates a large machine shop."61 Apparently there was still some room left in the building, so Betty and Schumacher converted it into office space around 1946-47.62 They also gave it a more marketable name, the Tower Building, presumably because it was a building with a tower. The first major occupant was the U.S. Forest Service, which gradually consolidated its offices there between 1947 and 1951.63,64 Other early tenants included the Albuquerque Community Chest65 and the first local office of the Camp Fire Girls scouting organization, which Schumacher helped set up.66
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| Loyal Betty having a good time on vacation, 1952. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
The building picked up another interesting tenant in 1953: a new radio station, KDEF. This might seem like a strange use for the former ice plant, but actually the thick cork insulation in the walls probably made the place pretty soundproof, and the tall tower was a good place to mount an antenna. KDEF was established by Frank Quinn, who used to be the manager of KOB in the 1940s, and started broadcasting on September 6, 1953 at 1280 kHz on the AM dial.67,68 This was only the city's fifth commercial radio station, so it was a pretty big deal. A schedule from the first week of broadcasting shows that programming ran from 7 am to 6 pm, featuring a mix of music, Spanish-language content, and sports, with news at the top of each hour.69
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| KDEF schedule from 1954 featuring Bill Previtti. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
The lunchtime slot was filled by a request show called the People's Choice, but within a few months it would be taken over by a young DJ named Bill Previtti. He quickly became one of the city's best known radio personalities and was reportedly one of the first to embrace rock and roll, even though Quinn wouldn't let him play it at first.70 A Journal article from 1956 shows just how controversial the music was at the time. Interviewees complained of fights and assorted juvenile delinquency at rock and roll events, with one anonymous social worker opining that "The beat excites the youngsters to the point where they lose their inhibitions and sometimes their restraint."71 But Previtti, only a couple of years removed from being a teenager himself, was on board with it. He continued to advocate for the city's teens later in his career too, including helping to legalize underage dance clubs, long banned by city ordinance, in the 1960s.72,73
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| Local teens Julia Contreras and Ben Gutierrez demonstrate rock and roll dancing for the Journal in 1956, accompanied by lyrics from Little Richard's "Rip It Up". Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
The city's more established radio men bristled at Previtti's zany persona, on-air goofs, and teen-friendly playlists, but eventually were forced to accept that this was the future. One of his rivals, Al Kurman, recalled in a 1987 interview, "In those days I was part of the conservative, traditional establishment stations that were not youth-oriented. We were very standoffish from the rock 'n' roll movement. … A teen-age novelty tune like "Aba Daba Honeymoon" was almost too hot for us. I won't say Previtti was fashioned after Alan Freed, but his style and persona were just kind of jarring to us who were establishment. I think you can credit him for what he did. Previtti was certainly a trend setter."70 After his time at KDEF, Previtti bounced around various broadcasting jobs and spent some time as Governor David Cargo's press secretary74 before briefly returning to KDEF as station manager in the 1980s.75 As far as I can tell he is still alive, but retired.
In addition to broadcasting on both radio and TV, Previtti was also an MC for local performances and was reportedly the man who introduced Elvis at the Armory in 1956. In his own version of events, "Previtti brought Presley on stage with a couple of jokes and an introduction along the lines of 'Here's a young man you're going to hear a lot about because this guy…'" before being drowned out by screaming. He also claimed to have taken Elvis out for a milkshake at the Pay Less drugstore after the show.70 All of this should be taken with a grain of salt, of course. Previtti was recalling the events 30 years later and had some key details wrong, like the year of the show and who the headliner was (though I think the fault for those errors lay with the research done by the Journal rather than him). But who could resist embellishing their Elvis story a little?
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| Elvis at the Armory, 1956. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
Back at the Tower Building, things were looking pretty empty after the Forest Service moved out in 1960. With 60% of the building now vacant, Schumacher and Betty took the opportunity to remodel it again, freshening up the office space with new carpet and lights and affixing what they probably thought were some very modern-looking aluminum panels all over the outside. It was also renamed again, this time to Tower Plaza (much classier).76 Over the years, the building hosted all kinds of tenants—everything from the state Democratic Party headquarters77 to the Institute of Therapeutic Hypnosis.78 There were also quite a few half-baked startup companies, like Brewmaster Inc., which marketed an electronically metered beer tap that was intended to "keep bartender[s] honest".79 The company managed to get some of their units installed in the Astrodome for testing, but then went out of business almost immediately.80 It was like the Scholz Beer debacle all over again.
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| The founders of Brewmaster show off their device, 1970. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
By the 1980s, Tower Plaza was looking pretty rough. KDEF had moved out in 1975,81 and the broken remnants of the station's neon sign were unceremoniously removed from the roof in 1982.82 In 1986, when the city was trying to find a site for the proposed convention center hotel which would eventually become the Hyatt Regency, Tower Plaza was the number one choice.83 The only obstacle was one stubborn old lady: Lela Ray Schumacher (1898-1991),84 the 85-year-old widow of Phillip Schumacher, who owned the building and lived in the penthouse apartment. She told the Journal, "This is my home and I intend to live here the rest of my life. I've lived here more than 20 years. My health isn't good, and I'm just not interested in selling."85 Try as they might, the city could not persuade her to budge, and consequently the building is still with us today.
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| The building in 1986. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
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| Lela Ray Schumacher (left) with her daughter Phyllis in 1952. Albuquerque Journal via Newspapers.com. |
Sometime in the 1990s, the building was converted from offices to apartments. This seems like a strange choice for an ex-industrial building with only a few small windows, but it's been working for more than 20 years, so who am I to judge? According to the former property manager's site, the units, which were referred to rather euphemistically as "lofts", range from one to three bedrooms. "If you are looking for a funky and unique residence then this is the building for you. Our tenants tend to fall in love with this quirky building and you will too!"86 The aluminum panels were removed from the lower part of the building but are still on the tower, as is the old KDEF antenna.
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| Around 2016. Via Apartmentfinder.com. |
Visually, the building got a huge upgrade in 2017 when Argentinean muralist Francisco Díaz, aka Pastel, was commissioned by 516 ARTS to paint the building. Instead of the previous dull brown, he wrapped the south and west walls of the building in a bold, colorful design depicting a variety of native flowers and plants. He described his work as "urban acupuncture", "like putting some needles in the city and trying to make it better." It was definitely a success; I never would have guessed the building could be improved so much just by getting a new paint job. At the time the mural was painted, the building was reportedly "being converted to a home for art studios and residential spaces with a gallery and collaborative studio."87 I'm not sure what the status of those plans are, but it seems like a good idea. The old ice factory surely has more adventures still ahead of it.
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| Pastel's mural, 2017. Via Muros ABQ. |
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