Bellefonte's River of Beer

Spring Creek

Not all of the newspaper stories we feature on this blog have to do with gruesome acts of violence or gory accidents.  The following, taken from the May 2, 1901, edition of the Middleburgh Post, is one such example:

River of Beer Wasted

Mathew Volk, proprietor of the Roopsburg Brewery, near Bellefonte, who was granted a brewer's license at the recent License Court, was unable to raise the $259 necessary to pay the license fee, and therefore left for other climes.

The failure to renew the license left the internal revenue collector with about one hundred barrels of beer on hands.  Being possessed of no legal warrant to sell the stuff, he settled the matter by emptying the whole lot into Spring Creek.