Dudler's Wine Cellar

Dudler's Wine Cellar. . Early in 1870, Joseph Dudler, owner and operator of the inn which was on the ground level of his house, built a brewery in back of his house here in Parley’s Hollow. To provide for this, in addition to the brewery proper, located on adjacent property west and north of the inn, he extended his entire earlier building sixteen feet further into the north side of the valley. To this extension he added what became know as the wine cellar. He built this rock-walled, underground cellar for a store room as well as storage for the product of his brewery. The walls and roof of the cellar, which still retain their structural integrity, average two-and-one-half feet thick and the walls were ten-feet high. The labor expended to excavate the basement, the cellar, and to erect the two-and-one-half story building of the hoyuse and inn, would have been a tremendous task. There were no backhoes, front-end loaders, no dump trucks or cranes in those days to help in the construction; just back-breaking, muscle-straining, hard work. The structure of the cellar was so well designed that over a half-century later, when crews came to clean up what was left of the burned-out building, this stone work that comprises the cellar, supported the weight of the “Cat” when the ground was leveled. , , Just to the west and a little bit north of the cellar was a tall brick chimney on the north end of a small frame building which was the brewery proper. This chimney remained in place for many years having outlasted the frame brewery building, but it too has long since fallen to the ravages of time as did the brewery building itself much earlier. Joe Dudler was a carpenter by trade and a brewer by profession and the following years would prove his proficiency at both. , , When Joe set up his first brewery at this location, he called it the Philadelphia Brewery. He sold his products not only at the inn, but also a little later at his Philadelphia Brewery Saloon in downtown Salt Lake City. His inn was also known for a time as Dudler Summer Resort and simply as Dudler’s Saloon. , , In the early 1900’s, his son Frank and doughter Retta ran the saloon at Parley’s Hollow while their father set up a saloon and ran his famous business in Park City. Joseph Dudler died in 1897.