Bernhardt Schade

On the second terrace of Greenwood, Bernhardt Schade, a German immigrant, is buried at the family plot.

Schade arrived in Spokane in the late nineteenth century with his Austrian Bohemian wife, Zofia, and was prominent in Spokane's early and vibrant brewing history. Serving for a decade as the brew master at Spokane's New York Brewery, Schade started his own brewery in 1903.

Schade hired the noted Spokane architect Lewis Stritesky to design a facility based on a European brewery. Initial production at the brewery was 35,000 to 40,000 barrels per year. In 1916, four years before national prohibition, Washington State passed a law prohibiting manufacture or sale of alcohol. Schade Brewery diversified by making near beer, a beer with an alcohol content of 0.5 percent. Schade Brewery survived prohibition only briefly until Bernhardt Schade fell ill in 1918 and the plant was idled.

On February 17, 1921, after a long illness after suffering a stroke, Bernhardt Schade shot himself at his home on East 909 Boone Avenue, survived by his wife and six children.

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Spokane Breweries
by Anne Coogan-Gehr
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