Frank Nicolin was born in Stommeln, Prussia. He emigrated to America in 1857 with his sister Margaretha and her husband, Wilhelm Kreuer. They settled in Le Sueur County, Minnesota.  In 1859 Frank married Anna Sophia Konigsfeldt, another German emigre. By the next year, they were farming 80 acres in the town of Lanesburgh.

The start of Nicolin's business empire was a general store he built in the village of Jordan in 1861.  In 1866 he and Sebastian Gehring built a brewery along the banks of Sand Creek, which Nicolin soon sold, only to erect a larger one in 1872.  Over the next two decades, Nicolin built a saloon, a bowling alley, a brickyard, a cooperage, a drilling company, two flour mills, and an opera house.  Ultimately he employed over 100 people in and around the town of Jordan.

He ran the Sand Creek Brewery until 1885, when he sold it to Schutz & Kaiser.  He was in his fifties now and easing back on his responsibilities.  For someone so diversified as Nicolin was in the 1870s, it is a wonder he was so exposed going into 1893.

Winter in Minnesota is summer in South America, and a crop failure in Argentina in February triggered a cascade of bank failures around the world.  It was called the "Panic of 1893", and Frank Nicolin was hit hard.  Many of his investments were wiped out. 

However, the coup de grâce for Nicolin came the following month when his Jordan City Mill burned to the ground.  Upon hearing news of the fire, its 60-year-old owner bolted into the streets, distraught and inconsolable.  He had gambled and lost.  He had failed to insure the Mill adequately, and when the accounting was done, Nicolin had a $70,000 mortgage and no means to pay.  Nicolin never recovered, and in 1899 - at age 66 - he was declared bankrupt.  He depended on his children for support for the rest of his life.

Frank Nicolin died on the 17th of April 1923 at the age of 89 years. The brewery he built passed through many hands after Nicolin sold out.  Over time the Sand Creek Brewery became the City Brewery, and finally, after the repeal of Prohibition, it became the Jordan Brewery.  In 1947 the firm was purchased by the Mankato Brewing Co. and closed.

Peter K. Schutz was born in Alsace-Lorraine, France. In 1858 his family emigrated to America and settled in Sand Creek Minnesota.

In 1885, Schutz and William Kaiser purchased the Sand Creek Brewery just outside of Jordan, and renamed it the Schutz & Kaiser Brewery. In 1902 Kaiser retired from brewing and Peter Hilgers purchased his share, after which it was renamed Schutz & Hilgers City Brewery.

Hilgers died in 1925 & Peter Schultz died on April 25th, 1926. The families kept the brewery running through Prohibition by converting it to a chicken hatchery. It re-opened as a brewery after repeal but was purchased by the Lanser family's Brewery in Phoenix, Arizona and closed down. It was resurrected once again as a depot for the Mankato Brewery for two years starting in 1947. The brewery sat vacant for decades but as of 2019 it has been rehabilitated for residential and commercial use.

Peter Hilgers was born in Germany. In 1902 he came on as partner with Schultz in the Schutz & Hilgers Brewery in Jordan Minnesota. He died on February 28, 1925.

The failure of the wheat crop in Argentina triggered a coup in Buenos Aires and investments encouraged by the Argentine banking firm Baring Brothers collapsed, causing the investment firm to fail.  This led to a chain reaction of worldwide margin calls and business failures that is now known as the Panic of 1893.

As a result of the panic there was a massive stock sell-off. Five hundred banks closed, 15,000 businesses failed, and numerous farms went dormant.  $1.8 billion dollars of railroad lines went into receivership and unemployment in American states went as high as 43% (Michigan).