This building was put up in 1902 or thereabouts, by which time Eberhardt & Ober was a division of Pittsburg Brewing. The contractor was Charles Reiff; old Pa Pitt has not been able to find an architect. Joseph Stillburg, who designed the main buildings across the street, was still working (and was fond of big arches); but his career is better researched than most architects’ careers in Pittsburgh, and we find nothing specifically connecting him with this building.
“Eberhardt & Ober” is quite a mouthful when you want to order beer, so most people just called it E&O, and the company bowed to the public will in its advertising. The initials suggested the slogan “Early & Often,” which became so famous in Pittsburgh that some older Pittsburghers still have it on their lips as a catchphrase for anything that’s worth doing over and over.
This old painted sign facing Moravian Way in Dutchtown, where it can be seen from the East Ohio Street business district, was a faded ghost until some years ago, when it was lovingly repainted to exactly its original appearance.
This splendid building dates from 1883; it is one of the most substantial remaining works of Joseph Stillburg, who was a big deal in Pittsburgh in the 1800s. Eberhardt & Ober was later absorbed into Pittsburgh Brewing, but the E&O brand was kept for many years, along with the memorable slogan “Early & Often.”
The building is well kept as the home of the Penn Brewery, which arguably founded the craft-beer movement and probably makes better beer than Eberhardt & Ober ever made.
This office building, also designed by Stillburg, was built in 1897.
The tall building with few windows was the stock house. Old Pa Pitt is not sure what the handsome little building attached to it was; perhaps a neighborhood historian can enlighten us.
These pictures were taken in 1999 with a Lubitel twin-lens-reflex camera, and old Pa Pitt just happened to run across them a while ago. Very little has changed, and we could probably pass these off as current pictures without remark. The main building is one of the relatively few remaining substantial works of Joseph Stillburg, who for a while was one of the major architectural forces in Pittsburgh. His buildings occupied prominent locations, and most of them were therefore replaced later by even bigger buildings.
Fort Pitt was the biggest beer brand in Pennsylvania in 1952. Then there was a big brewery strike, which affected the big three in Pittsburgh—Fort Pitt, Duquesne, and Iron City. When the strike ended, Fort Pitt rushed to be the first back on the market by shipping the past-its-prime beer that had been sitting around in its warehouse. Drinkers could tell. People with functioning olfactory senses in the vicinity of the drinkers could tell. The famous slogan “Fort Pitt—That’s It” was passed around with a slurred sibilant, and the brand declined precipitously.
Pittsburghers of an older generation still have this slogan on their lips, using it to mean “I’m done with this.”
As you can see, the brewery still stands in Sharpsburg. Much of it has been turned into apartments; one of the buildings now houses the Hitchhiker Brewing Co.
The office is a fine example of late Art Deco.
The Blockhouse was an obvious choice for an emblem.
This started out as a fine Romanesque design for an industrial building; it sprouted more and more haphazard additions, and became something more like a European castle with its layers of contradictory history. Today, after an adventurous history of abandonment and adaptation, it is called “The Brew House” and is filled with lofts and artists’ studios.
The Duquesne Brewery mushroomed into a titanic operation after the Second World War, and then rapidly collapsed in the 1960s and was gone by the 1970s. At its peak it took up three blocks on the South Side, and of course it was famous for the largest clock in the world. This 1899 building, the center of the empire, was abandoned for some time, then taken over by artist squatters, and finally, as the Brew House, became lofts and studios. It is an architectural curiosity, added to over the course of the brewery’s history with some regard for consistent style but no regard at all for symmetry.
