Louis de Crignis was born in Neuburg Alsace-Lorraine.  He emigrated to America at age 17.  He was drawn first to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he met and married German emigre Lena Rabe.  He obtained employment as a maltster/brewer at the Albert Schwill & Co. Malting Company of that city.  In 1890 he moved north to be a brewer in Covington, Kentucky, then in 1893 St. Louis, Missouri, where he is listed in the directory as living with (presumably brothers) Gottlieb and John de Crignis.

In 1894, at age 34, de Crignis once again moved east and took an opportunity in the White Brewery in Mt. Morris, New York.  A year later he opened up the long closed Oakland Brewery in Portage New York.  Despite its pastoral setting on the banks of  the Keshequa Creek, the Oakland had a violent history.  Two murders were reportedly committed on the premisis and the brewery had long been the scapegoat for the local newspaper's anti-saloon crusade.  The warm welcome Louis expected in Portage never came.  He shut the brewery down within a year and left town.

By the end of 1896 the de Crignis family had moved to Buffalo, New York, where Louis became a maltster foreman in a brewery.  In 1898 he was living in Easton, Pennsylvania.  He traveled back to Germany, apparently alone, for a time around the turn of the century.

When he came back to America in the early 1900s he was bound for the west.  He and Lena found a home in Gallatin Montana where Louis, just over 40 years of age, opened up a hotel and restaurant.  He and his wife would live in Montana for the rest of their days.  Louis de Crignis died on October 26th, 1947 at age 85 years.

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