2023 Radio Hall of Fame Inductee Pat St. John

Pat St. John at the SXM control panel.

In Pat St. John’s senior year at Southfield High School, Pat began broadcasting from WSHJ, their ten-watt radio station. He was required by the Federal Communications Commission to get a broadcasting license. Upon graduation in 1968 at the age of seventeen, Pat was hired as an announcer on WWWW-FM in Detroit.

Young and ambitious, Pat made a demo tape and took it to CKLW-AM, a 50,000 watt station across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The station’s strong signal was a regional powerhouse reaching well beyond the Detroit/Windsor area to several adjoining states and Provinces.

CKLW-AM hired Pat in 1969 as a weekend personality and news reporter on the station’s 20/20 newscasts. He also worked as a booth announcer for CKLW TV-Channel 9. Pat left CKLW late in 1970 when he was hired at Detroit’s popular WKNR (Keener 13) until 1972, when he was lured away to join ABC’s WRIF-FM, 101.1.

Musical tastes had shifted from Top 40 pop music to album-oriented rock. In the early 1970s, FM radio began dominating AM stations because they broadcast in stereo and allowed for a wider range of music beyond the Top 40 playlists, staples of many AM stations.

Pat St. John’s ratings in the Motor City were noticed by ABC’s network brass in New York and they convinced him to leave his hometown Detroit, America’s fifth-largest media market at the time, and move to The Big Apple, the largest media market in the United States. Radio stations in New York reached 14% of American listeners. The more listeners a Dee-Jay could attract, the more money was at stake for the company’s advertising revenue.

St. John began his New York broadcasting career at WPLJ-FM in 1973 where he stayed almost fifteen years. Arbitron, radio’s consumer research service, ranked Pat the most listened-to afternoon radio personality in the country for most of the years he worked at WPLJ.

From 1987 through 1998, Pat worked at WNEW-FM in New York, both as a personality and the station’s program director for several years of his eleven year stay there. He left WNEW-FM when the station changed to a “talk radio” format. Pat was immediately approached by Sirius XM satellite radio to become their Director of Rock Programming, making him one of the first people hired by the company.

Now, Pat is one of the longest-serving employees at SXM, having worked on several of their channels from pop to rock to blues. Today, Pat can be heard live across the United States and Canada every weekday afternoon (3 pm Eastern/12 pm Pacific) and Saturday evenings (8 pm Eastern/5 pm Pacific) on Channel 73, 60’s Gold.

Pat continued working on New York (terrestrial) radio part-time for fun at WCBS-FM (2000-2015) while working full-time at Sirius XM. His final CBS-FM New York broadcast was on April 12, 2015, marking the end of Pat’s forty-two-year run in the New York broadcasting market, making him New York City’s longest-running on-air personality up to that time.

Pat and his wife Jan moved to San Diego, California in 2015 to be closer to their two daughters and grandchildren where he broadcasts from his home studio. Pat’s 60s Gold show begins with a six-note fanfare reminding Pat’s Great Lakes listeners of his CKLW radio roots. Then, comes his theme song “Zing Went the Strings of My Heart” by Les Elgart and his Orchestra setting the stage for the show. Listeners always know from the opening that they are in for a good time.

Pat St. John’s on-air style is conversational and upbeat as he shares behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the music and performers between the music he plays. Pat has interviewed virtually everybody in the music business from Little Richard and Bo Diddley to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. He has been called “a walking, music encyclopedia."

Pat St. John with his Radio Hall of Fame Award.

With over fifty-five years in broadcasting, Pat St. John was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2023 for his lifetime of service to the industry. Not bad for a high school kid from Southfield, Michigan.

Pat St. John SXM Compilation (Six minutes)

Early Detroit Tiger History

Charlie Bennett

 

Prior to 1894, the Detroit Tigers played minor league baseball and were one of the founding members of the West League that played throughout the Great Lakes states. Owner George Vandereck choose the corner of Michigan and Trumbull Boulevards as their home field. Previously, the vacant lot was used as a local hay market for farmers and livestock owners. Vandereck bought the lot and built Bennett Park--named after a popular Tiger catcher Charlie Bennett--who lost his legs in a railway accident in 1894 while running on a rain-slick train platform and falling onto the tracks. Bennett's left foot and his right leg above the knee were severed as the train pulled out, ending his baseball career.

Frank "Old Stone Face" Navin

In 1901, the Tigers joined the new American League as one of its eight founding members. Samuel F. Angus bought the Tigers in 1902 and hired lawyer and baseball enthusiast Frank Joseph Navin to run the club for him. As a young man, Navin was a blackjack and poker dealer in an illegal gambling establishment. He loved horse racing and was an avid wagerer at two racetracks in Windsor, Ontario and attended the Kentucky Derby annually. In 1908, Navin parlayed $5,000 of winnings into buying a significant portion of Tiger stock.

In 1908, Navin bought another large block of shares making him controlling owner and new president of the organization. When Navin's silent business partner William Yawkey--lumber fortune heir--died in 1919, Navin bought his stock becoming full owner of the club. Because he was suddenly cash-poor, he sold 25% of the franchise to auto-body manufacturer Walter Briggs Sr. and 25% to wheel maker John Kelsey of Kelsey-Hayes Corporation. When Kelsey died, Briggs bought his interest in the team becoming an equal co-owner with Navin, but Briggs was content to allow Navin to run the team unhampered.

Frank Navin and Ty Cobb

In 1905, Navin signed legendary Tiger center fielder Ty Cobb for $1,500. The talented ballplayer led the Tigers to their first American League pennant win in 1907. Between seasons, Cobb held out for a $5,000 contract. After bitter negotiations, Navin--a tight-fisted owner--met his match. Cobb was wildly popular with the fans and threatened to expose Navin for the conniving cheapskate he was. The penny-pinching owner quickly did the math and caved-in to Cobb's demand. Cobb led the Tigers to two more consecutive American League pennants in 1908 and 1909 turning a nice profit for the team. Navin made Cobb the team's manager as well as being the team's star player.

Navin Field

Bennett Park consisted of a wooden grandstand and bleachers. It was the smallest ballpark in the league seating 14,000. Owners Navin and Briggs tore down the obsolete wooden Bennett Park between the 1911 and 1912 seasons and built a concrete and steel stadium seating 23,000 fans--renaming it Navin Field. In 1924, Navin built a second deck increasing seating to 30,000.

By 1931, the Great Depression cut Tiger attendance by 30%. To draw fans to the ballpark, Navin tried to sign the most popular player in the game--Babe Ruth--but he wasn't availabe, so Navin bought out Mickey Cochrane's contact from Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack for $100,000 and made him a player-manager. Cochrane was just what the team needed. He helped the Tigers win pennants in 1934 and 1935.

Mickey Cochran with Grace and Frank Navin--1935

 

Under Navin's stewardship, the Tigers won four American League pennants but did not win a World Series until the 1935 season, giving the Tigers their first series win. But Navin's victory lap was short-lived. Navin and his wife Grace rode horses several times a week at the Detroit Riding and Hunt Club. Six weeks after the Tigers won the series, Navin went for a solo ride on his favorite horse Masquerader and suffered a fatal heart attack, falling to the ground. When his horse returned riderless to the stable, his wife cried out for help, but it was too late. Navin was dead at age sixty-five. He was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield, Michigan in a family mausoleum.

Mickey Cochrane and Walter Briggs

 

After Navin's death, Walter O. Briggs purchased Navin's stock and became sole owner. Because Briggs made a fortune manufacturing automobile bodies for Ford, Chrysler, Packard, Hudson, and Willys-Overland, he did not need an income from the team and promised not to take a salary during his tenure as owner. In 1938, he changed the name of Navin Field to Briggs Stadium and remained the sole owner of the Tigers until his death in 1952. The stadium was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961 until the franchise moved to Comerica Park in 2000.

For 104 seasons, the Tigers played baseball at Michigan and Trumbull earning them the distinction of being the oldest continuous one-name-only city franchise in major league baseball.

1935--Detroit Tigers, Lions, and Red Wings win their championships. 

Little Richard Streicher--Ypsilanti's Depression Era Unsolved Murder

On the blustery afternoon of March 8, 1935, thirteen-year-old Buck Holt and his eleven-year-old brother Billy followed muskrat tracks in the snow and discovered the body of seven-year-old Richard Streicher Jr., missing since the previous evening. He was found frozen solid under the footbridge leading to Island Park (now called Frog Island), adjacent to the Cross Street bridge spanning the Huron River.

Buck Holt ran to the Anderson Service Station (gas station) across the street and told attendant Raymond Deck (22) there was a dead kid down there. Deck investigated and immediately phoned the Ypsilanti police. Chief Ralph Southard was the first to arrive, followed shortly by Washtenaw County Deputy Sheriff Richard Klavitter, and his brother Sergeant Ernest Klavitter of the Ypsilanti police.

Scene under the footbridge where Streicher's body was discovered.

By the time police arrived, a crowd of curious bystanders had trampled any footprint evidence left in the overnight snow. To further complicate matters, a bucket of sand was spread on the snow to make it safer for investigators to climb down the slope to view the body. The shovel used to spread the sand was used to pry Richard Streicher from the cement ledge he was frozen onto. Then the body was taken to the Moore Funeral Home in Ypsilanti to thaw. Richard Streicher's stiff clothes were cut from his body and burned at the request of his parents. More potential evidence was destroyed.

The autopsy was done at the funeral home rather than a medical facility. Of fourteen knife wounds, three punctured the wall of the heart causing his death. A good-faith police investigation--by Depression era standards--was conducted. Seven months later, Richard Streicher's body was exhumed, with a second autopsy performed by the county coroner's office.

On September 27, 1937, a one-man grand jury was conducted by State Attorney General Raymond W. Starr. He took another look into the case and interviewed close to forty people, but no new evidence was disclosed. The result--nobody charged--nobody indicted. The case remains unsolved over eighty years later.

Richard Streicher, Jr. was buried in Highland Cemetery (Section 16 - Lot 66), but nobody in living memory can say if his grave site ever had a marker or headstone. It has been unmarked for decades. Perhaps someone misplaced the headstone when Richard's body was exhumed. More likely--someone removed it for a macabre souvenir. Nobody knows.

Five years ago, an article about Richard Streicher Jr. by John Counts for MLive (December 27, 2015) moved John Sisk Jr. to start a Go Fund Me page to raise money for a gravestone. With the help of Robison-Bahnmiller Funeral Home in Saline, Michigan, Tina Atkinson-Kalusha of Highland Cemetery, and private donations, a monument was designed to honor the memory of Richard Streicher Jr., who deserved better than he got. A nineteenth-century sled is engraved in the granite headstone. Richard was last seen alive sledding with friends. A graveside memorial service was held on Saturday, October 15, 2016.

Richard Streicher Jr. paperback and ebook reduced in price. 

Ypsilanti's Hutchinson House Built with S&H Green Stamp Fortune

Hutchinson House

In 1896, Thomas A. Sperry and Shelley Byron Hutchinson went into the S&H Green Stamp business together. The New York Times business section described this newly formed company "the first independent trading stamp company to distribute stamps and books to merchants."

Not much is known about Mr. Sperry. He was an Easterner. His home was destroyed by fire in 1912, with damages estimated to be $150,000. He was an avid art collector and a number of valuable paintings went up in flames. A year later, Sperry contracted ptomaine poisoning on a return ocean cruise from Europe. When he returned to the United States, he was so ill he couldn't travel to his home in Cranford, New Jersey. He was forty-nine years old when he died.

Sperry's brother, William Miller Sperry, inherited his brother's business interests and gained control of the company. In 1921, Shelley Hutchinson sued the estate of Thomas A. Sperry alleging that Sperry defrauded him of his full share of dividends to the tune of $5,000,000. Secret funds were diverted from company funds to Sperry. Hutchinson won the suit. The founders' family successors sold the franchise in 1981.

Much more in known about Shelley Hutchinson. His grandparents were among the first settlers in Ypsilanti, Michigan, still little more than a frontier outpost. Shelley's father Stephen Hutchinson married Loretta Jaycox on November 26, 1862. Shelley was born two years later in a log cabin in Superior Township on October 19, 1864. From 1874 until 1894, the Hutchinsons lived in a four room wood frame house at 509 N. River Street, across the street from the Champlain mansion. As a kid, he attended the Union School through the eighth grade--a typical education for a nineteenth-century boy.

Shelley was ambitious and intelligent. While working at a family shoe business with his father and brother in Battle Creek, Michigan, in the 1880s, he conjured up the idea for a trading stamp business he could promote to merchants as a customer retention program. On a small scale, the idea was promising, so a regional headquarters was established in Jackson, Michigan, chosen for its central location between the state's eastern and western borders.

Three years later, Hutchinson met Sperry in New York--an Easterner with money and business connections. Soon after they went into business, stamp redemption centers sprung up in many of Michigan's major cities. With early success, the promotion was expanded eventually growing into a nationwide coast-to-coast business concern. Sperry and Hutchinson made money hand over fist.

 

Shelley Hutchinson met Clara Unsinger, who was a stenographer in the company. Clara was the granddaughter of an Ypsilanti deacon. They were married on April 27, 1894. By the turn of the century, Hutchinson had amassed enough money to build his dream house. He considered building in New York, but his father urged him to build in Ypsilanti to be reunited with family and friends.

Feeling a boyhood affinity for the area, Hutchinson decided to build his thirty-room Richardsonian Revival mansion across the street from where he grew up--the site of the deteriorating Champlain mansion on the corner of North River and East Forest streets. Construction began in 1902 and was completed in 1904. Hutchinson called his mansion Casa Loma--Spanish for house on the hill. The site was believed to be Ypsilanti's highest point--on the east side anyway. He moved in with his wife, three children, parents, and brothers and sisters.

See the link below for more views of the house.

Building his mansion on Ypsilanti's east side was a social mistake for the wealthy millionaire. The Huron River was the town's dividing line. The east side was the working class neighborhood, and the west side was primarily for the wealthy and social elite. Hutchinson was never accepted into Ypsilanti high society because he was "new money" and shunned the "old money" denizens. He and his wife Clara rode around town in a fine phaeton carriage with matching horses. The newly rich pair wore only the finest clothes, and the "Stamp King" wore a silk top hat. During the height of his success, Hutchinson bought diamonds by the pocketful from Tiffany's in New York.

In an early undated Ypsilanti Daily Press article, the reporter wrote a "rags to riches" story about Hutchinson. Quoting merchant A.A. Bedell, "Hutchinson was always immaculate in dress, dark haired and handsome. One day, he stood in (my shoe store in Depot Town) and a shaft of light struck his diamonds, a glittering array. He had half-caret diamonds in each cuff link and wore two diamond rings, one of three carets and one between seven and eight. His shirt stud had a three and a half-caret stone." People said when Hutchinson walked in the sunshine, he sparkled.

But the domestic situation at Casa Loma was less than stellar. The Detroit News reported on July 3, 1906, that Mrs. Hutchinson deserted "the mansion on the hill" in anger taking her three children with her to live with neighbors across the street at 629 N. River Street. Clara had had it with her Hutchinson in-laws and complained to the reporter that she was forced from her home penniless--except for some diamonds she left with. Hutchinson's father and sister publicly claimed they wished Clara would return to manage the place. As for her husband, Shelley retreated and went south for his health. The domestic situation was intolerable for him too.

As the story goes, Shelley had been gravely ill and entrusted his wife with his diamonds. Upon recovery, he asked for them back. Clara refused saying he gave them to her. She hid the diamonds away, but while she was sleeping one night, her husband found her hiding place. Shelley locked the diamonds in a tin box and placed them in his roll-top desk in his locked home office. Two could play at that game. Clara took her husband's key and unlocked the office door. After a brief search, she found the tin box and opened it with a can opener. Then she left the mansion taking her children.

The Ypsilanti Daily Press reported on January 14, 1910, that a divorce was granted giving Clara custody of the three children, $9,000 cash paid out over five years, and her husband's diamonds. She sold the largest one to a neighbor and the rest to a diamond broker in Detroit. In 1912, Hutchinson's mansion was sold at public auction to the Ypsilanti Savings Bank to satisfy an unpaid mortgage and back taxes. The home has been used for a commercial property in the past but now houses the Highscope Education Research Foundation.

In an Ypsilanti Press interview in 1955, the ninety-one-year-old Hutchinson was living in New York. He was quoted as saying, "Some of the people (in Ypsilanti) were jealous of me because of the big house, but they had no reason to be. I was good to everybody." Shelley Hutchinson returned to Ypsilanti one last time time in 1961 for burial in a family plot at Highland Cemetery--several blocks north of his mansion. He was ninety-seven.

Most people in Ypsilanti are familiar with the outside of the Hutchinson House but have never seen the interior. Check out this link to see just how extravagant it is. https://www.flickr.com/photos/sjb4photos/sets/72157622572604360/

For more detailed information about the Hutchinson family, read Janice Anschuetz's article "River Street Neighbor's Gossip and the Hutchinson Marriage," which appeared in the Ypsilanti Historical Society's September 27, 2010, newsletter Ypsilanti Gleanings. http://ypsigleanings.aadl.org/ypsigleanings/37044

S&H Green Stamps--Emblem of a Bygone Age

Sperry and Hutchinson Company were the originators of S&H Green Stamps--as much an American cultural icon as anything. The company began offering redemption stamps to American retailers in 1896. Stores bought the stamps and offered them as bonuses based on the dollar amount of the purchase. S&H Green Stamps was the earliest retail customer loyalty program selling and distributing stamps and books to merchants. With a unidirectional cash flow, this shoppers' incentive made its originators multi-millionaires.

Stamps were issued in denominations of 1, 10, and 50 points. Stamp pages were perforated with glue on the reverse side to mount in twenty-four page collector booklets. Each booklet contained 1,200 points. Reward gifts were based on the number of filled books required to obtain the object. Green Stamps had no real cash value.

S&H Green Stamps could be obtained at supermarkets, department stores, and gas stations. Completed booklets were redeemed at one of 800 distribution centers located around the country. Most popular in the early 1960s, S&H boasted that its reward catalog was the largest publication in the United States. They issued three times more stamps than did the United States Postal Service.

Economic recessions in the 1970s reduced sales and decreased the value of the rewards. Shoppers began to see the stamps as not worth the trouble, and stores started to drop the program. In 1981, the founders' successors sold the business.

Green Stamps entered the realm of pop art iconography when Andy Warhol used a three step silkscreen process to print a 23"x22.75" canvas in 1962. Three years later, he used offset lithography to print the classic green stamp images on forty-nine 7'x7' panels to act as wallpaper within a gallery exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Philadelphia. A single panel recently sold at auction for $6,250.

S&H Green Stamp founder https://fornology.blogspot.com/2016/12/ypsilantis-hutchinson-house-built-with.html

Michigan's Struggle for Statehood

The British officially turned over Fort Detroit to the United States and evacuated on July 11, 1796. At noon, the Union Jack was lowered and the American flag was raised. Michigan was officially part of the United States under control of Territorial Governor Arthur St. Clair.  

On July 13th, United States Colonel John Hamtramck arrived with 400 soldiers to secure the Detroit command. Detroit consisted of a wharf, a fort, and a citadel of about 100 houses, shops, taverns, and Ste. Anne's Church. Ribbon farms extended on both sides of Detroit from the St. Clair River up stream to the Rouge River downstream.

The first United States Federal Census in the Michigan Territory was in 1800. Detroit's numbers were so small that they were lumped in with Wayne County's numbers. It was estimated that 500 people lived within the stockade with another 2,100 living on nearby farms. 

In 1810, the first Michigan Territorial census counted 770 people living in Detroit while the rest of Michigan territory showed a population of 4,762. With a combined population over 5,000, Michigan was entitled to three seats on the Northwest Territory's legislature. By 1815, Detroit was incorporated as the City of Detroit with its own governing board.

Population growth was slow in Michigan because the Surveyor-General of the United States issued a faulty land report based on flawed and incomplete information that the territory was nothing but lakes, swamps, and sandy land. Most settlers hoping to homestead farmland out West opted to follow the Ohio River water highway to Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. The erroneous account delayed Michigan's development.

The inaugural trip of the steamship Walk in the Water, named after a Wyandot tribal chief, left from Buffalo, New York for its destination of Detroit, Michigan in 1818. This marked the beginning of regular steam service carrying passengers and goods between the East and Detroit. Steamship travel on Lake Erie opened up Michigan and the Great Lakes area for farming, timber, and mining interests from New York City. 

The 1820 census showed Detroit's population to be 1,442 while Michigan's population grew to 8,927. Government-funded post roads were built radiating from Detroit helping to develop small towns and farming communities inland. On a public safety note, City Fathers erected a public whipping post near the intersection of Woodward and Jefferson avenues to discourage petty crime and drunkeness. It remained in use until 1831. As a result of the Greek War for Independence, 1822 saw a huge influx of Greek immigrants to the Detroit area.

Travelers headed to Buffalo, New York.

The United States' second wave of immigration consisted mostly of Irish and Germans. Many of these newcomers constructed the Erie Canal between 1817 to 1825. The Irish with horses and mules dug 363 miles of canal while German stonemasons engineered bridges and built thirty-six locks that raised freight boats and other canal traffic 565 feet in elevation from east to west. When the canal opened on October 26, 1825, it set off a land boom in Michigan and Detroit until 1837.

The 1830 census of the Michigan Territory counted 85,000 people which qualified Michigan for statehood. There was a delay because of the Toledo Strip dispute with Ohio in 1835. This was the original Buckeye/Wolverine rivalry. The so-called Great Toledo War was a stalemate settled with ink rather than blood.

Michigan was admitted to the Union on the condition that the Ohio boundary be accepted. Ohio got the Toledo Strip and Michigan got the entire Upper Peninsula with some of the most gorgeous and extensive lakefront property in the United States. Statehood was granted in 1837. 

Michigan soon adopted its state seal and motto designed by Lewis Cass in 1835. The bald eagle symbolizes the United States, while the elk and the moose holding a shield symbolize Michigan, with the Latin word "Tuebor" meaning "I will defend." The state's motto is "Si Quaeris Peninsulam Amoenam Circumspice" (If you are looking for a beautiful peninsula, look around you), all on a field of dark blue.

Erie Canal Populates the Great Lakes Region

Detroit's Pfeiffer Brewery and Johnny Pfeiffer

The Johnny Pfeiffer plaster-of-paris figurine depicts a Revolutionary War minuteman playing a fife. Designed by Walt Disney Studios in 1951 for the Pfeiffer Brewing Company, the back bar statuette was made by the Plasto Corporation in Chicago. A company spokesperson says Pfeiffer Brewing commissioned eight different versions of Johnny over the 1950s. Two thousand of the 7.25 inch figurines were produced every month making it the most common and least valuable statue they ever produced, currently selling on Ebay for $25 to $45 depending on condition and the motivation of the buyer.

Brewery founder Conrad Pfeiffer brought the original beer recipes from Germany in the late nineteenth century. The original styles were "Pfeiffer's Famous"--a light lager--and "Pfeiffer's Wurtzburger"--a dark lager. Their brew masters used only new seasoned white oak kegs and barrels to insure consistent quality and taste. Pfeiffer became Detroit's third most popular beer brand behind Stroh's and Goebel before Prohibition took effect in 1920.

Repeal was passed by Congress and signed by President Franklin Roosevelt in December 1933, ending America's nightmare experience with Prohibition. Beginning in February 1934, Pfeiffer restored the exterior beauty of its original building built in 1889. The interior of the plant was completely remodeled, enlarged, and modernized. Legal beer shipments resumed on May 15, 1934.

Pfeiffer gained considerable market share after Prohibition repeal largely due to heavy-handed distributors who intimidated vendors and tavern owners to take their beer products over other brands. Complaints from vendors prompted the Michigan Liquor Commission to investigate Pfeiffer distributorships.

On February 22, 1935, Michigan Assistant Attorney General Gordon E. Tappan testified at a Liquor Commission public hearing that "(Pfeiffer Brewing Company) made no attempt to screen its distributors for character, qualifications, morals, or police records." Tappan charged the company and its agents with using strong-arm tactics to muscle in on Michigan's beer industry. The company made no attempt to rid itself of underworld influence.

The Macomb Distribution Company had Mafia boss Joe "Uno" Zerilli and his underboss William "Black Bill" Tocco on their board of directors with Anthony Lambrecht, Alfred Epstein, Abe Rogoff, and H. Armin Weil, who also had police records. The board of Meyer's Products Company--another Pfeiffer distributor--included Donald F. Gray--president; Charles Leiter--vice-president and Oakland Sugar House Gang co-boss; Henry Shorr--treasurer and Sugar House Gang co-boss; Elda Ruffert--secretary; James Syla--manager; Sam "the Gorilla" Davis--company agent and known Purple Gang enforcer; and Henry Toprofsky--company agent and known Purple Gang enforcer. 

Pfeiffer Brewery officials were required by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission to show cause why their brewing license shouldn't be revoked. Then president William G. Breitmeyer pled ignorance and said the company was having trouble keeping up with demand. They didn't need to force their products on anyone. On April 10, 1935, the company agreed to bar all persons with criminal records from serving as beer distributors and suspended their contracts. Despite the bad Depression-era publicity, Pfeiffer became Detroit's most popular brand overtaking Stroh's and Goebel by the end of the 1950s. But trouble was brewing on the horizon.

In the 1960s, Budweiser, Miller, and Pabst sought to become national brands. Because of their assets, access to capital, and huge advertising budgets, the Big Three brewers put many regional brewers out of business--not because of superior products but because of marketing and financial resources.

To compete with the Big Three, Pfeiffer changed its corporate name to Associated Brewing Company (ABC) in 1962. ABC acquired and consolidated smaller Midwestern brands and breweries to position itself in the national market, but they overextended themselves and became overburdened with debt. The old Pfeiffer brewery and bottling plant on Beaufait Avenue closed in 1966, and by 1972, the rest of ABC's remaining assets were sold off.

Detroiters are left with some aging memorabilia and a few random facts. In some small measure, the microbrewery movement of the twenty-first century is nipping at the heels of the national brands and cutting into their profits. Many of the old-style beers are once again available for our quaffing pleasure.

Many thanks Renee Reilly-Menard for gifting Johnny Pfeiffer to me along with the Vernor's gnome. The Detroit Historical Museum already has Johnny Pfeiffer in its collection. He looks good on my mantelpiece. I think I'll keep him.

Home for the gnome: https://fornology.blogspot.com/2019/01/vernors-gnome-found.html