COLD BEER.
HOT LIGHTS.
SWEET ROMANTIC TEENAGE NIGHTS..
Dick Yuengling knows how to throw a party.. an entire town brought to a halt to raise a glass to beer, and the oldest brewery in the United States..
Saturday’s 190th event in Pottsville runs 1-10 p.m., and includes music, street vendors and beer gardens. It concludes with the Better Than Ezra concert 8-9:30 p.m. on the main Progress Avenue stage, with fireworks provided by the city to follow.
Dick Yuengling Jr., has pledged $2.8 million to the city for construction of the new Mahantongo Street Parking Center just down Mahantongo Street from the brewery and gift shop.
The 190th is set to occur under a beautifully sunny summer day .. the crowd will most likely be counted in the tens of thousands.. Apparently God drinks Yuengling.
But this is not the first time fanfare has greeted the beer.. Back in 1893 a man named Charles Guetling made national and global headlines and garnered tons of attention to the Pottsville beer.
This is how the Pottsville REPUBLICAN HERALD reported his efforts in 1893:
CHARLES GUETLING, the World’s Fair wheelbarrow tramp, who left here one week ago today for his long walk, has surprised everybody by his erratic movements in his first week’s journey. Had he taken somebody into his confidence who knew something of the roads of the state, a member of the Pottsville Bicycle Club for example, he would have been many miles nearer his destination and would have been sure of much better roads than he has been traveling most of the time.
By looking at the LAW Road Book, it will be seen that he had an almost direct route marked out for him to Erie and from there he would have had a splendid route to Chicago. Instead he has been traveling roads not considered fit for travel by wheelmen of experience and which are therefore not marked on the map.
But somehow Guetling made it to the World’s Fair with Yuengling beer!
He died in 1929.. the REPUBLICAN reported it this way:
Guetling leaped onto the front pages of all the newspapers in the country in 1892 when he left Pottsville pushing a heavy wheelbarrow and a keg of Yuengling beer, bound for the World’s Fair in Chicago.
He arrived with foot sores and covered in dust..
He may have been one of the first famed PR moments that propelled Yuengling to the front pages .. into the hearts of the nation.. and today even parts of the world.
Ten more years until the 200th..
Who will be the next to wheel some beer across the nation in time?
