Antique Koehler Beer Bottle Opener

Antique bottle openers from Koehler's, Wayne Brewery and W. E. McClelland courtesy of B. Chambers.

If you love local local history and collect memorabilia from Erie, Pennsylvania businesses, you may recognize these antique bottle openers. First we have an old Koehler Beer opener in the upper left-hand corner. This was used before the new twist off caps were designed for glass bottles.The Wayne Brew bottle opener looks an awful lot like a shoe horn. The final opener, complete with a corkscrew to open a bottle of wine, was given to customers who bought a new Oldsmobile at the W. E. McClelland dealership in Erie. William McClelland worked as a salesman for his friend Jake Roth in the forties, then ran his own company. 

After awhile, these items were delegated to the junk drawer in the kitchen. You know the one, with mismatched buttons, old shoe laces, an ice pick, a nutcracker, the tool for digging walnuts out of the shell, wheat pennies, the owner's manual for the oven, clicky pens that stopped writing twenty years ago, match books advertising restaurants, playing cards, mismatched dice, Monopoly pieces and every other trinket that was considered too valuable to throw away.

The Erie County Historical Society and BrewErie presented a night of local beer history on March 12, 2014. The sold-out event featured a special BrewErie pint of pre-prohibition era formula Koehler Beer, exceptional Erie brewing archival images and collections from the ECHS holdings! 

Click here to see the old Koehler Clock on State Street. and here for a Wayne Brewing Company ad.

Find more facts about Erie at Old Time Erie

Wayne Brewing New Stubby Bottle

-Wayne Brewing ad in Erie Dispatch-Herald October 15, 1936

The Wayne Brewing Company had a brewery at 1701 Parade Street in Erie, PA for many years. 

The stubby Wayne Brew Pilsener Beer 12 ounce bottles were introduced in 1936. They had wooden crates scaled to the size of the 6.5" bottle so they could be easily loaded onto delivery trucks; take-out 24 packs had a different carrier. Wayne Brewing items are highly collectible, and are often seen in antique shops and on eBay. 

Wayne Brewing had at least six main buildings in its heyday. The bottling house was located on the northeast corner of East 17th and Parade. The main complex was on East 17th Street behind the two buildings on the southeast corner of East 17th and Parade. 

Enjoy more historic facts and photos of Erie, PA at Old Time Erie