Charles "Carl" Hebrank was born in Hohen, Germany.  He was a trained brewer.  In 1853 he emigrated to America with his wife, Cartherine, and their children and settled in Parkersburg, West Virginia.  Soon after arriving he partnered with Marcus Rapp to form a brewery in town, where his two sons Louis and John learned the art of brewing.   Eventually his sons went on to establish their own breweries in West Virginia and Kansas.

Charles Hebrank died on the 18th of March, 1887 at the age of 78 years.  The brewery was reorganized as the Parkersburtg Brewery in 1889 and was closed down by West Virginia Anti-Saloon laws in 1914.

Marcus Rapp was born in Gerlingen, Württemberg, Germany. In 1874 he partnered with Louis Hebrank to form the Hebrank & Rapp Brewery in Parkersburg, West Virginia. In 1889 they changed the name of the brewery to the Parkersburg Brewing Company. Marcus Rapp died on October 11, 1904. The brewery closed in 1914 due to West Virginia state prohibition.

Louis Hebrank was born in Hohenzell, Bayern, Germany. In 1853, at age 16, he emigrated to America with his parents, brothers and sister. The young family settled in Parkersburg, West Virginia.

Soon after arriving his father Charles established a brewery with Marcus Rapp to establish the first brewery in Parkersburg.  Louis learned the ropes of the brewing trade there.  By 1864, when he was 27, Louis had settled in Lubeck, a German community outside Parkersburg. 

They Hebranks and Rapp opened a second brewery in Lubeck in 1878. The Lubeck brewery lasted only a few years but the Parkersburg brewery was popular. While Hebrank died in 1896 and Rapp died in 1904, the brewery lived on, closing up shop in 1914, when West Virginia state Prohibition laws made brewing beer illegal.