Arlington Brewing Company
Arlington had its own brewery making beer for thirsty residents and businesses
Among its customers were many illegal saloons, gambling houses, and brothels that crowded Rosslyn and Jackson City to serve other Washington thirsts.
Arlington had its own brewery making beer for thirsty residents and businesses. Built in 1896 on the banks of the Potomac where the Rosslyn Marriott now stands, the brewery was initially named the Consumers Brewing Company until 1902, when it was renamed the Arlington Brewing Company.
The brewery dominated the riverfront near the old aqueduct bridge. Local architect Albert Goenner designed the brewery and Arlington County’s courthouse, which was built just two years after the brewery. The brewery was a large red brick building with turrets at each end, a clock tower in the center, and a large smokestack with horse and mule shoes nailed to the top for good luck.
The brewery made light and dark lagers, ale, and porter. It mainly sold to local consumers and legal saloons that dotted Rosslyn and D.C. Also among its customers were many illegal saloons, gambling houses, and brothels that crowded Rosslyn and Jackson City to serve other Washington's thirsts. As the idea of Prohibition increased in popularity, the brewery offered to help protect customers' reputations by advertising free delivery of its products in unmarked wagons in the local area.
By 1902, the brewery was struggling. Sold and renamed, it faced the frustration of Arlington residents who were growing tired of the county’s reputation as Washington's “red light” district. Reform-minded Arlingtonians elected Crandall Mackey Commonwealth Attorney because he promised to clean up the local community. He made good on his promise by raiding illegal saloons and smashing bottles of booze.
Before Prohibition, the company tried to counter claims by the Temperance movement that alcohol and its abuse was a leading cause of home-wrecking, causing domestic violence, poverty, and broken families. The company converted to producing Cherry Smash, a carbonated soda.
Cherry Smash Soda was founded in 1901 by John E. Fowler in Richmond, Virginia. The company produced a cherry-flavored syrup that could be added to carbonated water or ice cream, and the drink gained early popularity amidst the rise of the soda fountain, earning the nickname “Our nation’s beverage.” Throughout the early 1900s, there was even a Cherry Smash-sponsored amateur baseball team in the Richmond League.
The soda came to Arlington right around the time Prohibition went into effect. With a plan to move the company’s headquarters from Richmond to Arlington, Fowler purchased the Arlington Brewery in 1920 for $125,000 and converted it into a Cherry Smash plant (also called the “Fowler Building”).
When the Cherry Smash company set up shop in Arlington in 1920, the soda was one of the largest soda brands in the country, second only to Coca-Cola. As Cherry Smash ingratiated itself into the Arlington landscape, Fowler became a prominent member of Arlington’s business community, advocating for business development in Rosslyn in the 1920s and serving as chairman of the Arlington Trust Company Bank from 1925 until he died in 1960.
Cherry Smash continued manufacturing and bottling at the Rosslyn site until around the 1950s. Numerous other operations also took place on or adjacent to the Cherry Smash property, including a lithographing company, a laundry facility, a hardware warehouse, a millwork facility, and a tree surgery company. In 1943, part of the Cherry Smash plant was used to manufacture and bottle wine, connecting the location to its pre-prohibition roots.
In 1940, J. Willard Marriott opened a Hot Shoppe next to the Cherry Smash facilities, which had become a highly successful local restaurant chain since the first location debuted in D.C. in 1927. In 1958, Marriott demolished the soda plant to construct a “Hot Shoppe’s Motel,” which in 1959 debuted as the “Marriott Motor Hotel” and was later called the Key Bridge Marriot.
In the 1950s, Washington A-list investor C. Wyatt Dickerson purchased the company, and Robert Pond (who later founded the still-existing Pond Roofing) served as president during this era. Cherry Smash continued to be manufactured in Arlington into the 1960s at a new location at 601 North Randolph Street in the Ballston area, where it was bottled and sold in gallon form.
Cherry Smash’s legacy lives on in Arlington through artifacts at the Arlington Historical Society and through throwbacks such as New District Brewery’s Sour Cherry Smash beer.
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