CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · History & Society

August Schell Brewing Company

brewing company

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ763762 ↗
Source-derived summary

The August Schell Brewing Company is a brewing company in New Ulm, Minnesota, that was founded by German immigrant August Schell in 1860. It is the second oldest family-owned brewery in America (after D. G. Yuengling & Son) and became the oldest and largest brewery in Minnesota when the company bought the Grain Belt rights in 2002. In September 2010, the brewery celebrated its 150th anniversary with a two-day festival. Every year, Schell's also celebrates traditional German holidays with Bock Fest and Oktoberfest. The current brewery is owned and operated by the August Schell Brewing Company, a Minnesota corporation that was incorporated in 1902.

History

August Schell (February 15, 1828, in Durbach, Grand Duchy of Baden – September 20, 1891, in New Ulm, Minnesota) emigrated to the United States in 1848. He worked in Cincinnati as a machinist before relocating to New Ulm with other members of the Turner Society. Upon moving to New Ulm, building on his experience as a machinist, he established a mill. In 1860, August Schell partnered with Jacob Bernhardt to found a brewery to serve the growing German immigrant population in the area. August and Jacob selected a site two miles from the heart of New Ulm along the Cottonwood River.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “August Schell Brewing Company” is brewing company. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through August, Schell and Brewing, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1860, 2002, 2010, 1902—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, August, Schell and Brewing is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “brewing company” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q763762. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1860, 2002, 2010 and 1902.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “August Schell Brewing Company”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow August Schell Brewing Company primary sources, August Schell Brewing Company archive and August research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “August Schell Brewing Company”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “August Schell Brewing Company” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.