Moment in Time (October 6, 2022)
Carl Hoster and his wife Mary Sheldon lived in the home at the lower left on Arlington Avenue in Marble Cliff. The expansive carriage house and stable is seen at the back of the property. The upper right photo shows the Hoster Brewing complex in the Brewery District just south of downtown Columbus. The lower right shows Carl Hoster as a student at Cornell, and the upper left is taken from a drawing by Billy Ireland from his book “Club Men of Columbus In Caricature”. He is holding a garland that would be given to the winner of his Hoster-Columbus $10,000 Stake horse race.
Carl Jacob Hoster, a former resident of Marble Cliff, was one of the members of the Hoster family that was instrumental in the brewery business in Columbus starting in the mid-1800s. Louis Hoster was born in 1807 in Germany and emigrated to the United States in 1833. On his way through Columbus, he saw an opportunity to bring his German brewing skills to the city. He decided to settle here, and in 1836 started the City Brewery with partners Jacob Silbernagel and G. M. Herancourt. Within a few years, he was able to buy out his partners, and renamed the brewery as L. Hoster Brewing Company. Louis was active in Columbus business and politics, serving two terms on the City Council starting in 1846 and opening a woolen mill in 1852.
Louis and his wife Philippina Ambos of Columbus were married for just over 50 years and had five children: Louis Jr., Elise, George, Emma and Lina. George and the younger Louis became involved in the brewery business and officially took it over after their father's death in 1892. George served as President and Louis as VP.
Two competing Columbus breweries, also located in what is now called the Brewery District, were the Born and Company Capital Brewery and Nicholas Schlee & Son’s Bavarian Brewery. George Hoster married Mary Anna Born, daughter of the founder of the Born Brewery, in 1880. They had six children, including a son Carl Jacob.
Carl went to Cornell before returning to Columbus to join the family business. He joined the Arlington Country Club, where he met and married Mary Sheldon, daughter of Robert Sheldon, a prominent Columbus industrialist. (Mary’s sister Flora married Samuel Prescott Bush. They lived in the Bush mansion on Arlington Avenue, and their son Prescott was the father of President George H.W. Bush. Their brother Butler Sheldon also built a home in Marble Cliff on Roxbury.) Carl and Mary purchased three lots (#45-46-47) in the Arlington Place subdivision, just down the street from the Bush mansion, to build their summer home at 1368 Arlington. The home had a large water tower with an attached living area that was used by the Hoster’s servants as their quarters. It also had a large stable for horses and a carriage house that was used for Carl’s multiple automobiles and additional workers’ living area. Soon after it was built in 1902 Carl and Mary decided to live in the home year around.
Carl became Director of the Hayden Clinton National Bank, Director of the Columbus Driving Park Association, and President of the U.S. Brewer's Association. In 1904 the L. Hoster Brewing Co. joined with Born’s Capital Brewery and Schlee’s Bavarian Brewery to create the Hoster Columbus Associated Breweries Co. in order to help market their products more competitively. Carl was named President of the consolidated venture. The collaboration was very successful for the next decade and a half, but suffered as World War I began. The 1919 Eighteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the resulting Prohibition in 1920 signaled the death knell for the breweries.
During the more successful period of the brewery’s operation, Carl Hoster was regarded as kind of a free spirit. He enjoyed tennis, golf, “fast” cars, and horse racing. Driving Park, which Hoster headed, was the site featuring the nationally famous Hoster-Columbus $10,000 Stake horse race. It was also the site of the world’s first organized 24-hour endurance auto race, preceding the race in LeMans by 18 years. The event was held on the 1-mile Driving Park oval track on July 3–4, 1905. It featured four cars (a Frayer-Miller, a Pope-Toledo, a Peerless Green Dragon, and a White Steamer) that raced for a $500 silver trophy, provided by Hoster’s company. The winning Pope-Toledo car, owned by executives of the brewery, covered 828.5 miles for an average of 34.5 MPH. Carl purchased a new model of the Pope-Toledo, as well as a 1906 Fiat roadster, the following year. A newspaper article reported that Hoster was arrested by the local marshal for speeding through the streets of Marble Cliff in his roadster at an estimated speed of 25 MPH (the marshal was on horseback).
Carl and Mary Sheldon Hoster had 2 children, Katherine and George. After the breweries closed, the family moved from Marble Cliff to the home of his aunt Lina Hoster on West Broad Street near Bexley. Carl passed away in 1941.
References:
1. Sheltering a Heritage, a publication of the Grandview Heights/Marble Cliff Historical Society.
2. Club Men of Columbus in Caricature, W.A. (Billy) Ireland, Roycrofters, 1911.
3. Chloe Dickson on behalf of Ohio History Service Corps. L. Hoster Brewing Company, Clio: Your Guide to History. May 4, 2021 https://theclio.com/entry/116453
4. Micheal Knapp, The World’s 1st 24-Hour Automobile Race, 1979. (Republished online at us.motorsport.com in 2005)
https://us.motorsport.com/vintage/news/the-world-s-first-24-hour-race/1209653/
5. Julie Albert, Endurance car racing started here, The Columbus Dispatch, 4/7/13
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2013/04/07/endurance-car-racing-started-here/24189521007/