John Jacob Schlawig was born in Thusis, Graubünden, Switzerland where he was trained as a wagon maker. In 1855 he emigrated to America with his wife Ursula (née Haag) and their two daughters. They reached their intended destination of Dubuque, Iowa that summer, but after only a few months they relocated to Sioux City.
In 1855 Sioux City was a hamlet situated on the banks of Perry Creek, far from the noise and nuisance of the lawless frontier town of Dubuque. The Schlawigs made Sioux City their home and John opened a wagon shop on Water Street. He participated in the local guard that defended the area from Sioux warriors who considered the land the property of the Sioux.
In 1861 John Jacob answered the patriotic call of his adopted country and enlisted in the Union Army. The U.S. generals sent him not south but west, to continue the battle with the Native Americans. After his service he returned to Sioux City and opened a brewery next to his home on 6th and Nebraska Street.
For a nearly a decade Schlawig was content in his brewery on the creek. He had three daughters and two sons at home. He took on Joseph Rechner as a foreman and they opened up The William Tell Beer Hall. By all accounts business was good.
Then in 1875 Iowa's ever-changing Temperance laws caused business strife. The city sued Schlawig for breaking liquor and gambling ordinances. Then his former foreman and another employee sued him for back wages. All three verdicts came down against the brewer and like that, the tidy brewing empire Schlawig built was finished. Schlawig mortgaged the brewery property in February and offered it for sale in November.
In 1876 news came from the west that gold and silver was there for the taking in the Dakota Territory. Schlawig decided to check it out. At age 45 Schlawig filed a miners claim on Bear Butte and rushed back to Iowa in order to pack up his brewery equipment and relocate to the town of Deadwood. He arrived in April of 1876, and, while he retained his residence in Sioux City, over the next decade he spent less and less time there, and more time in the boom town nearly 500 miles away.
By July of 1876 Schlawig was mining by day and brewing at night and both enterprises were earning money. But within the year he will have abandoned the brewery in favor of his silver mine. In February of 1877, when he returned to Iowa he talked only of silver. In June of that year the Sioux City Journal reported that Schlawig's brewery in Deadwood was sitting idle.
Up in the hills Schlawig had hit a vein of silver so rich that soon his brewery debts would soon be a small matter. The Washington Lode, as it was called, was one of the most valuable veins of silver in the Black Hills, and Schlawig had claim to a good bit of it. It ended up making him a very wealthy man.
With the help of Schlawig's money Sioux City prospered and his old house on 6th and Nebraska Street grew old with him. By 1919 it was considered an eyesore in the business district, and also very valuable property. In April of 1919, 88 year old Schlawig was finally persuaded to move out of the home he built in the 1860s. By that October, he was dead.
John Jacob Schlawig died on October 11th 1919 at age 88 years.
