Historic Garfield Street Saloon

Historic Garfield Street Saloon. . , Adam Gintz, the president of Belleville's Western Brewery, built a saloon on the corner of Garfield and Mascoutah in 1896. Successor businesses would continue to provide alcoholic beverages here for more than a hundred years. The earliest saloonkeepers, brothers William and Gerhard Hoelscher, were followed by some 20 other proprietors. Most of them lived in the building. , The saloon remained in the Gintz family until George "Long Bob" and Anna Wiesner purchased it in 1922. He had been the saloonkeeper in 1919 when Prohibition went into effect in Belleville, causing him to convert the business into a soft-drink emporium. It was shuttered for a time in 1927 when Wiesner went to prison for selling alcoholic beverages. After release from prison he ran a grocery store here. Legal alcohol again became available in the building at the First and Last Chance Tavern following Prohibition's repeal in 1933., Subsequent proprietors included former Belleville police chief Henry Bilzing and Lillian Hess, whose tenure extended from the 1970's to the 1990's. A successful restaurant, Garfield's Bar and Grill, during the early 2000's was followed by the Golden Eagle Saloon, managed by a former racketeer. The last tavern here was the Brick Street Bar and Grill, which was foreclosed in 2010. It was one of the last neighborhood taverns in a city that at one time had more than 100. The Belleville Historical Society acquired the building in 2010 for a museum to honor Belleville's saloon and brewing heritage.