Beer and Breweries on the Border

El Paso Archaeological Society Program

In Partnership with the El Paso Museum of Archaeology

 Saturday, November 16, 2013, 2:00 pm, Free Admission

Location: El Paso Museum of Archaeology

4301 Transmountain Drive, El Paso 79924

Our speaker Bill Lockhart, known as “Bottle Bill” for his focus on historic bottles, shines a light on a little known subject, El Paso and Juarez breweries and how to identify their bottles.  Prior to the arrival of the railroads, the main source of alcohol in El Paso was wine.  The railroads brought beer — and beer bottles.  The El Paso thirst reached its limit in 1903, when a group of businessmen opened the El Paso Brewery. With the advent of Texas prohibition in 1918, the brewery closed.  The corporation reorganized and moved the brewery across the border, where it became the Juarez Brewery.  With the return of drinking in 1933, Harry Mitchell, the owner of a Juarez bar and restaurant, organized a corporation that built the Harry Mitchell Brewery on the foundation of the old El Paso Brewery.  The firm sold to the Falstaff Brewing Assoc. in 1956, but Falstaff closed the plant in 1967. The building currently houses apartments, offices, and art studios.

Biography:

Bill Lockhart is a Sociology professor at the Alamogordo campus of New Mexico State University.  He is also a historical archaeologist, specializing in glass containers.  Lockhart has written numerous articles and several books on bottles and the bottle-related industries of El Paso, Southern New Mexico, and Juarez.  His latest book, Breweries and Beer Bottles at El Paso, Texas, is on the history of the El Paso brewing industry and its bottles.  He has written several articles in The Artifact, published by the El Paso Archaeological Society, on dating local/regional glass bottles. In addition, Lockhart plans to complete histories and bottle chronologies of the El Paso Dairy industry and Drug Store industry before he retires in two years.