In keeping with my apparent trend in pointing to historical beer items, I thought this anecdotal bit of history about the Fesenmeier Brewing Comany was interesting. (Though it died as a result of Prohibition.)

Sons of the German Fesenmeier family, which had started a brewing beer in the Cumberland, Md., area shortly after the Civil War, came here in 1899 and bought the 6-year-old American Brewing Co.

The new owners overcame all sorts of obstacles to sell their product, including unpaved streets and swamps that stood between the brewery in Central City — later West Huntington — and its retail markets in Huntington, a devastating fire in 1905 and the 1913 flood. But Prohibition was the last straw, and longtime employees were laid off and scattered in all directions.