Jamie Hughes
Associate Photography Editor
Rieker Bottle Works on West King Street in Lancaster is a hotspot for those looking for unique alcoholic beverages. But it has more history to it than many realize, much of which is hidden below the surface.
Rieker Bottle Works is named for a brewery which was established out of Lion Brewery in the second half of the 19th Century, called the Reiker Star Brewery. According to the 1966 issue of the Lancaster Historical Society’s journal, the brewery formerly sat where Crystal Park is today. The park is behind the modern-day store, which itself is located within what was once the Western Market Hotel set up by Frank A. Reiker, the brewery’s first owner. The brewery was very large, standing over four stories tall and extending down to First Street from King Street.
Rieker Star was allowed to continue operating during Prohibition because, according to Reiker Bottle Works owner Paula Saxinger, the business had a license to produce low-alcohol “cereal beverages.” The business was well-known in the 1920s to flout the laws, however. They went to literal lengths to continue producing high-strength alcohol by running rubber hoses through Lancaster’s sewers. At one point the hoses ran all the way from the brewery to Water Street. To set up the hose system, they hired two “sewer rats,” or people with short stature, from New Jersey to brave the tight sewers to run the hose.
“But then they [the federal government] would go in and test their stuff,” Saxinger said, “And it’d be regular beer, so finally the federal government got so sick of them that they had all their licenses revoked and said they were going to take all of their brewing equipment and destroy it.”
The brewery, however, fought back in court, facing the government in 1931 according to the historical society journal. They argued that the government did not have the right to destroy what was highly expensive equipment. Later that year, the Supreme Court, according to Saxinger, refused to allow the government to destroy the equipment. According to the journal, they cited that the government had not obtained a search warrant prior to seizing it.
“But that was the year before Prohibition ended,” Saxinger said, “And then with all this litigation and just years of not being able to brew, they didn’t have any money left.”
Rieker Star Brewery, therefore, was not able to start its operations back up. They would rent their brewery to other operations for a time, according to Saxinger, but during World War II the now-unused brewery was torn down for parts.
Today, one remaining remnant of the Reiker Star brewery is the former hotel building, now serving to host Rieker Bottle Works. The hotel survived the brewery’s closure and according to Saxinger operated in several forms up towards the close of the 20th Century. She added that many of the still-standing houses around the former brewery site were also constructed by Reiker Star to house workers.
But further traces of the building’s past are secretly hidden below. Underneath an opening in the basement floor of the Reiker Bottle Works is a set of catacombs which formerly served to store the Reiker Star Brewery’s products. Made of bricks, the catacombs are far enough beneath the streets of Lancaster that cell phone signals do not reach there. A small pipe runs along the floor of the catacombs, which according to Uncharted Lancaster was formerly the beginning of the infamous sewer hose system.
Getting into the catacombs was treacherous. The only way in and out is an old metal ladder which is not bolted to anything. The only source of light was a string of bare bulbs which ran in from upstairs, most of which were not working deeper into the catacombs. This necessitated the use of flashlights to further explore.
The floors and ceiling show the passage of time through the piles of dirt and rubble piled around. The catacombs also demonstrated their advantageous cool temperatures, which in the time of the brewery’s operation would have served to preserve the alcohol being stored there.
While commercial building inspectors have been into the catacombs according to Saxinger, she said restoring them to a state where the public could visit them would be costly and difficult.
“You would have to have two separate ADA-accessible entrances, and you can’t just have dirt floors, there would have to be a significant amount of work that would be done to enable people to come down here.”
She added, however, that the catacombs are structurally sound thanks to its well-built brick archways.
When Saxinger bought the building, she toured the catacombs. Nothing much of interest was found in them, because their existence was known to the building’s past owners. The catacombs were used to “hang out” according to Saxinger, meaning anything in them would have been taken over the years. Some people have donated old objects from the building’s past to the Reiker Bottle Works such as beer bottles, which are now on display in Reiker Bottle Works’ main shopping room.
