Thursday, March 31, 2005

Tiny Potosi Beats Out Milwaukee and St. Louis

Tiny Potosi, WI beat out both Milwaukee and St. Louis for the National Beer Museum. Potosi was home to the Potosi Brewery, which pumped out Potosi beer from 1852 to 1972. The old Brewery will be the new home for the national museum. Potosi, with 726 residents, perched on the banks of the Mississippi River in SW Wisconsin is probably the smallest town in the country with a national museum.

The American Breweriana Association chose the tiny town last year after the Potosi Brewery Foundation (www.potosibrewery.com) put together a proposal and funding for a project that includes the renovation of the former Potosi Brewery into a museum, a restaurant with beer garden, microbrewery and gift shop. The 30,000 sf facility will cost $3.4 million.

This project has the opportunity to put Potosi back on the brewery map.

1 comment:

BoomtownUSA said...

Jeff: When I spoke with the people from Potosi about how they won this museum, they indicated that they think that it was due to focus that they had as well as the fact that both St. Louis and Milwaukee had a number of balls in the air and weren't totally focused upon this project.

They got funding from both private and public. However, their initial funding to get the project started was private.

Jack Schultz