Carl Jacob Hoster, former resident of Marble Cliff, one of the members of Hoster’s circle of relatives who was instrumental in the Columbus brewing business beginning in the mid-nineteenth century.
Louis Hoster was born in 1807 in Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1833. In his time in Columbus, he saw an opportunity to bring his German brewing skills to the city. He settled here and, in 1836, founded City Brewery with his partners Jacob Silbernagel and G. M. Herancourt.
Within a few years, he was able to buy his partners and rename the L. Hoster Brewing Company. Louis is active in Columbus business and politics, served two terms on the city council beginning in 1846, and opened a wool factory in 1852.
Louis and his wife, Philippina Ambos, of Columbus, were married for 50 years and had five children: Louis Jr. , Elise, George, Emma and Lina. George and young Louis became interested in the brewery business and took over after their father’s death in 1892. George served as president and Louis as vice president.
Two competing Columbus breweries, also in what is now the brewing district, were Born and Company Capital and Bavarian brewery Nicholas Schlee.
Carl went to Cornell before returning to Columbus to enroll in the kin circle business. He enrolled in the Arlington Country Club, where he met and married Mary Sheldon, daughter of Robert Sheldon, a prominent Columbus industrialist.
(Mary’s sister, Flora, married Samuel Prescott Bush. They lived in the Bush mansion on Arlington Avenue, and their son, Prescott, the father of President George H. His brother, Butler Sheldon, also built a space on Marble Cliff on Roxbury Road. . )
Carl and Mary purchased 3 masses (No. 45-46-47) in the Arlington Place subdivision, just down Bush Manor Street, to build their summer home at 1368 Arlington. The area had a giant water tower with an adjacent living room that was used by the host’s servants as their rooms. There was also a giant horse solid and shed that was used for Carl’s multiple cars and an additional living room for the workers. Shortly after it was built in 1902, Carl and Mary to live in the area year-round.
Carl became a director of Hayden Clinton National Bank, a director of the Columbus Driving Park Association and president of the U. S. Brewer’s Association. In 1904, L. Hoster Brewing Co. joined forces with Born’s Capital Brewery and Schlee’s Bavarian Brewery to create Hoster Columbus Associated Breweries Co. to market your products more competitively.
Carl was named president of the consolidated company. The collaboration was a success for the next decade and a half, but suffered at the start of World War I. The 18th Amendment to the U. S. ConstitutionIn 1919 and the resulting ban in 1920 sounded the death knell for breweries
During the peak era of the brewery’s operation, Carl Hoster considered himself a kind of laid-back spirit. He enjoyed tennis, golf, “fast” cars and horse racing. Driving Park, tour Hoster, the site of the famous Hoster- Columbus $10,000 Stake horse race. It was also the site of the world’s first organized 24-hour staying power race, preceding the 18-year-old Le Mans race.
The event took place on the 1-mile Driving Park oval track on July 3 and 4, 1905. It featured 4 cars (a Frayer-Miller, a Pope-Toledo, a Peerless Green Dragon and a White Steamer) that cost $500. Silver Trophy, through the winning car Hoster. La Pope-Toledo, owned by brewery executives, drove 828. 5 miles at an average of 34. 5 mph.
Carl bought a new style of Pope-Toledo, as well as a 1906 Fiat roadster, the following year. A newspaper article reported that Hoster had been stopped by the local sheriff, who was on horseback, for accelerating through the streets of Marble Cliff on his roadster at an estimated speed of 25 mph.
Carl and Mary Sheldon Hoster had two children, Katherine and George. After the breweries closed, the circle of relatives moved from Marble Cliff to his aunt Lina Hoster’s home on West Broad Street near Bexley. Carl died in 1941.