A little bit about the Grosslein Truck

It was 1919 when August Grosslein, Sr., better known as Gus, began his business with a grocery store and beverage distribution company where Mississippi Street meets East River Road in Fridley. The business used a Wilcox truck to deliver groceries, soda pop, and “near beer”—a non-alcoholic beer made famous by the passage of Prohibition. In addition to getting his business up and running, Gus still worked as a brakeman on the Northern Pacific Railroad in the yard not far south of his home in Fridley. After 19 years with the railroad, Gus decided it was time to devote his total energy to his business.

In 1928, Gus moved to Anoka to a location next to the railroad tracks on 7th Avenue and opened the Wineberre Bottling Company. The plant was no longer just a distribution point for other companies’ beverages—Gus was bottling his own soda pop called “Wineberre.”

With the repeal of Prohibition, beer was once again legal, and Gus distributed real beer from six different breweries in addition to his line of soda pop.

The name was changed to the Anoka Bottling Company with the addition of the Lem-O-Lime soda pop, but more than the depression era economy took its toll on the business. The bottling plant burned to the ground in the late 1930s.

Gus relocated his business to Main Street in downtown Anoka, which proved too small very quickly, so he moved again to a concrete block building on Second Avenue. The bottling works established there was the latest in modern plants and was soon turning out their own line of Lem-N-Lime soda pop and the national brand, Mission Orange.

WWII hit the business hard. Sugar and gas were rationed, making creating and delivering the soda pop hard. Gus’s two sons, Robert (Bob) and August Jr. (Duke) served in the military. Since both worked in the bottling plant, their absence made it even harder for Gus to keep the business going.

When the war was over, Bob and Duke returned to work at the bottling plant, but changes in how wholesale beer was distributed and the consolidation of breweries again challenged the business.

In 1951, they added the Pabst beer line to fill the gap left by the disappearance of the small breweries. Gus retired a few years later and left the company's day-to-day running to his sons. In 1967, the boys bought the Elk River Beer Distributorship, giving them two more popular lines of beer: Schmidt and Miller. Mission Orange went out of business in 1955, ending its connection to that brand.

The major soda pop companies were putting the squeeze on small bottlers, and in 1967, the bottling plant was sold to the 7-Up Company. It was the end of the small bottling company in Anoka, but not Grosslein’s. Distribution of beer continued and flourished. More space was needed, so Bob and Duke bought land for a new building on Highway 10 in Ramsey in 1972. That was also the year Gus died.

The new facility opened in 1974 and was expanded in 1975. Bob retired in 1976, and Duke reorganized the business. His son, Dana, became president; son-in-law Tom Blaska was vice president, and daughter, Nancy, was treasurer. Duke and his wife, Luverne, were the chairs of the board.

They soon added hospitality rooms, new docks, and a temperature-controlled warehouse to the facility. This was completed in 1983.

In 2009, the family made the decision to sell the company to Dahlheimer Distributing of Monticello, and an era was over. The Grosslein Beverage Company line ended after 90 years of business in Anoka County.

In 1989, they purchased and refurbished the donated truck to ACHS. August Sr. owned a similar 1919 truck in the earliest days of the business. ACHS currently seeks volunteers with heavy-duty trucks to bring the truck to local parades and events. If you are interested in participating, please call Sara Given, ACHS’s Volunteer Coordinator, at 763-421-0600.