Congratulations, Hermann

A Birthday with Quite a History

Michael Round

November 16, 2009

(much of this story from Wikipedia)

(this is a first-pass at a multi-part series on wine-making, which I find fascinating, but know nothing about!)

Hermann recently celebrated it's 2000th birthday.

In 9 A.D., the Roman Empire was on the move, looking for new territories to conquer.  It marched on.  The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest turned back the Roman Empire and three Roman Legions, and thus changed the course of history.

This battle began a seven-year war which established the Rhine as the boundary of the Roman Empire, for the next four hundred years, until the decline of the Roman influence in the West.  The Roman Empire made no further concerted attempts to conquer Germania beyond the Rhine.

2000 years ago.  An amazing story.

Happy birthday, Hermann ... MISSOURI!

Missouri?

And herein lies another another amazing story!

Gottfried Duden was a German lawyer.  He was also a traveler and writer.  He was looking for new things to write about.  He came to America to learn about ... America!  He visited eastern Missouri, and established a farm along the Missouri River.  He wrote glowingly about Missouri, and the similarities between the Missouri River and the Rhine River of Germany.

He published his book under the title, "Report of a Journey to the Western States of North America".  It was the start of a massive German immigration to Missouri.

A number of German settlers landed in now Hermann, and named the town after the hero of 2000 years prior.
 

This story alone would be amazing if it stopped here.  I love researching the origins of home-towns.  My own town of Overland Park, for example, has a fascinating story as the origin of the first gas-electric vehicle with the Strang-Line Interurban Railroad!

The story of Hermann, Missouri does not stop there:

There's yet another amazing story!

You see, Hermann was founded in the Missouri River Valley.  The soils here are poor for most agriculture.  But they're excellent for grapes.

And from grapes comes wine.

Led by Friedrich Muench and Paul Follenius of the Giessen Emigration Society, German immigrants arrived in the area in 1834. Friedrich Muench became known for his expertise in the cultivation of grapes and wine making and founded Mount Pleasant Winery in the 1850s with his brother.

Muench was a prominent writer and lecturer and wrote a number of books. He frequently wrote under the name of "Far West." His book American Grape Culture was published in 1859. On the former farm of Friedrich Muench stands a stone barn with his name in the keystone. Letters written by Muench and Follen to friends and relatives in Germany brought more of their countrymen to the Missouri valley.

The area along Route 94 between Defiance and Marthasville has so many wineries that the highway has been nicknamed the Missouri Weinstrasse (wine road). This area has the highest concentration of wineries in the state. Many of these sit high up on bluffs above the river.

Pre-Civil-War, Missouri was the wine-capital of the United States!  The Show-Me State!  Missouri!  The trans-continental railroad, making access to California easier, gave rise to California becoming the nation's leader in wine production, Missouri second.

It was like this for half-a-century.

In 1919, Missouri had 100 wineries.

In 1920, they had one.

Why?

Prohibition.  The Eighteenth Amendment.  Ratified January 16, 1919, and effected January 16, 1920.

Alcohol was illegal.

The one remaining winery? Saint Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant was allowed to continue making sacramental wine.

These two elements demonstrate the ignorance of policy-makers over the course of time, and the lack of understanding regarding the proper role of government in a free society.  Why ban wine?  Why allow religious institutions to continue making it?  The contradictions abound, as do the consequences.

Legal wine production was an oxymoron.  Illegal wine production was the preferred course of action.  And from this came --- the proliferation of organized crime.  The mafia. 

Prohibition was, thankfully, repealed on December 5, 1933, with the ratification of the twenty-first amendment.

Did Missouri immediately regain it's dominance in the wine-making industry?

Hardly.

Actions have consequences.

And it wasn't for decades until the business came back.

But it's back!

Closing thought:  this is a first-pass at an article starting with a brief conversation I had over the weekend with a gentleman telling me about the dominance of the Missouri Wine industry in history.  I had no idea.

But more than this is creating, eventually, learning materials for kids that actually incorporate the real world from multiple dimensions - true interdisciplinary learning.

A glass of wine, for example, contains topics of chemistry, biology, geology, geography, history, technology, etc.  As briefly discussed above, there's a lot more than this, however, because all of these without human intervention is meaningless.  It's the human story of creativity, inventiveness, skill, and wonder that takes the mystery of the world and, to me, magnifies it - personalizes it - makes it really a heroic story!