Nebraska's First Winery with Cindy Drake & Ben Kruse

Tyler Bertsch

All right, this is Tyler Bertsch. Today we're doing an oral history interview on the first winery recorded in the state of Nebraska, the Peter Pitts Winery, and I'm here with Cindy Drake and Ben Kruse. Do you guys want to go ahead and talk a little bit about your background and introduce yourself, and then we'll get into how this all came about?

Cindy Drake

Okay. Well, I am a retired librarian of Nebraska State Historical Society, where I was employed for 45 years. During my years there, I not only being the librarian, but I also became a local historian, uh, based upon the questions that I received from researchers, and with that local history research that I did for those who contact the State Historical Society, I wrote my community history for my town of-- hometown of Avoca. I compiled a history for my husband's hometown of Elmwood, and I also became an avid genealogist, so I'm a local historian, genealogist. And the interest with Peter pitz is because of my colleague, Ben Kruse, who was doing research on the early wineries in the state, and it turned out that Peter Pitts Winery was in Cass County, where I  was raised and still live in today. And so that was my interest in pursuing with him about Peter Pitts.

Ben Kruse

Ben Kruse, and I studied history and anthropology at the University of Nebraska. I was employed at the Nebraska State Historical Society for eight years, and worked in museums in Otoe, Saunders, and Lancaster County before that. I just was doing work at the Historical Society, came across, Peter Pitts' story.

Tyler Bertsch

Gotcha. Okay. Well, before I get started, too, I just wanna make sure I have your permission to post this on the Prairie Viticulture website, if that's okay with you guys?

Ben Kruse

Of course.

Cindy Drake

Sure.

Tyler Bertsch

Okay. I just have some generic questions, and we can kinda squirrel from there.

Tyler Bertsch

If I remember, I heard this entire research project started because you were searching for something with a beer mug, right? How did this quest for a brewery lead you to discover the first winery?

Cindy Drake

Well, you, you explain it. You- you're-

Ben Kruse

Okay. Sure. Yeah, no, I was gonna come up with a gift set of glasses to sell at the museum, having, a shot glass with the first distillery, like a beer mug with the first brewery, and a wine glass with the first vineyard or winery. So I was able to locate the, obviously, the first brewery and the first distillery. That's pretty easy. But the wine became quite a challenge because there's not a lot of documentation involved with that. And that's how it started.

Tyler Bertsch

Gotcha. At a time when most people were just trying to survive on corn and wheat, why do you think Peter decided to plant thousands of grapevines?

Cindy Drake

Because that was his background. He came from a wine-growing area in Germany, and I have-- neither one of us have done in-depth research on his family history yet. In regards to his family. when he was interviewed in the 1890s, he talked about his early childhood in the wine-growing areas of Germany, and that was his interest. Now, why he came to Nebraska, I have not seen any real reference to that. What's interesting to me is, apparently he came to America and served in the Civil War in Wisconsin, and then went back to Germany, where he was married. But his wife apparently had the relative connection with Wisconsin. too. And so, why they came from Wisconsin to Nebraska, I have no idea. But it's very obvious that when he came here in the early 1870s, that was his idea of still seeing if this was an area where he could grow grapes.

Tyler Bertsch

Yeah.

Cindy Drake

He's already mentioned in local new- newspapers, the Auburn newspaper in 1883, that he was already had a vineyard going and everything. And when you see what land he had, this 90 acres or so of land that he actually acquired, it basically was an area of land that most of the farmers didn't want because they couldn't grow their corn and wheat there.

Tyler Bertsch

So have you stood on the ground where that was?

Cindy Drake

Yes.

Tyler Bertsch

What's, what's the terrain like for people that are listening?

Cindy Drake

Today, it's entirely changed because it's now a subdivision of houses. Basically, what his family inherited then was like this small 90-acre plot that just sort of was cut out of other farmer-- of, like, maybe two or three other farmers' land in the area. Because it was, like, gullies and little trees and, you know-

Tyler Bertsch

Not really wanted so much.

Cindy Drake

It wasn't wanted for the farmers for planting the regular row crops.... but Peter Pitts apparently saw that the climate and everything else, and the way that probably with the drainage systems and all of that kind of thing.

Tyler Bertsch

The air drainage the water drainage, all that.

Cindy Drake

Yes. He saw that  he could do something with it, and this was proven then when by the 1890s, he was making $20,000 a year off of his wine business, off of the nine or 12 acres of land that he was using specifically to grow the grapes.

Ben Kruse

Right. Can I add to that?

Cindy Drake

Yes, please do add.

Ben Kruse

There was a Facebook post, several years ago from a historical society in Germany,  specifically referencing Peter Pitts, and-

Tyler Bertsch

The news article was in Germany, or was it in the language of German?

Ben Kruse

Both.

Ben Kruse

It was a Facebook post from a German historical society in Germany-

Tyler Bertsch

Oh, okay

Ben Kruse

... referencing Peter Pitts. Actually... referencing his father. What it was, in short, was they lived right on the Rhine River.

Cindy Drake

That's right.

Ben Kruse

And his father sold his mineral rights. This was the Industrial Revolution time, and so he sold his mineral rights, I imagine coal. And  I don't recall much from the article except they were wondering, they were kind of asking rhetorically, "What, what happened to Peter Pitts?" We don't know, you know? And I wasn't on Facebook at the time, but I wanted to reach out and say, "Well, I could tell you what happened to him." But Peter pitz was a... what you call a market farmer, right? So he wasn't a commodities farmer, like he wasnt row crops, right?

Cindy Drake

Right.

Ben Kruse

So he had, a little more diversified range of things that he grew and went direct to market. Sounds to me as if there was kind of a German business world in Omaha, and that's where his connections were. Because my recollection is that he would bring Germans from Omaha, different areas, to come to the cellars to drink.

Cindy Drake

Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

That's cool.

Ben Kruse

Yeah. So yeah I also know that, his brother lived down the street.

Cindy Drake

Right, and, and that's where you see this connection. If Peter would not have died of a heart attack in 1899, he and his brother would have built a fabulous business, business between the being... His brother was so much into being a truck farmer. He wasn't into the winery and doing things with the wines and creating wines, creating grapes that would grow in this area. That was all Peter. And when Peter dies in 1899, his son, Julius, and his brother had no interest in pursuing that with the grapes, of going that direction. So it was more-

Ben Kruse

And they're just selling grapes through the paper, you know, so many, you know, so many cents a pound, come get your grapes. So they had all these grapes, but they weren't producing wine the same way.

Cindy Drake

Right. But you can tell from this article that was done in the Omaha World-Herald in 1895, before Peter passed away, you can see that he was doing exactly what Ben was. He was making those connections in Omaha for the future, and, you know, he was showing those businessmen in Omaha, "Look what I've done with these nine acres in creating wine," and just trying to get the interest, probably trying to get more support to help him financially too-

Tyler Bertsch

Build infrastructure.

Cindy Drake

... to keep build the infrastructure and get all- keep all of that moving, and he was the instigator behind all that.

Ben Kruse

Are you aware of how he died?

Cindy Drake

Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

Um, he had a heart attack, if I remember, yeah.

Cindy Drake

Right.

Cindy Drake

He had a heart attack. He was driving back from-

Ben Kruse

He was driving back home, so he was just found in his wagon. He was just kind of going down the road on its own with him at the helm there.

Tyler Bertsch

Yeah.

Ben Kruse

Which is kind of interesting.

Cindy Drake

Mm.

Ben Kruse

So they'd say, you know, "A wealthy market farmer found dead in a wagon,".

Tyler Bertsch

What years roughly was the winery in operation?

Cindy Drake

Well, as we said, in 1883-

Tyler Bertsch

'83 to 1899, basically

Cindy Drake

... he, he was building it. He started... He, he was already in, and I'd have to look up the exact dates again, but he was already in Cass County and growing grapes, developing this winery in the early 1870s.

Tyler Bertsch

Oh, 1870s, okay.

Cindy Drake

But as far as I know, without getting totally into the registered deeds records, is that he may have very well have just been renting this property from the local farmers, that he felt was good for doing the wine. And then as he got to this point he bought the land from the farmers. But 1883 is the first recorded listing we have for him of having this, that he was raising grapes and producing wines and doing the variations that would work, and that's probably why he was making his connections along the river to get the input from the other grape owners in the area. Well, he was the first.

Ben Kruse

I think the Germans in Omaha were his customers. Because these were... I think, I don't know anything about the wine business. This is speaking from a position of a layperson, but I get the impression that this was sold almost like private label. Like, "Here's, you know, here's a 55-gallon cask, and you can bottle it, or you can just put it in your tavern or whatever, and sell it under whatever name." That's kind of the impression that I'm under, because there's no reference to bottling or any kind of marketing you know what I mean?

Tyler Bertsch

Right, yeah. That's how they probably would have done it in the late 1800s. That is what I've seen in other wineries that came a little bit later.

Ben Kruse

You asked earlier about standing on the ground there. I haven't, actually. But I've looked at a lot of LiDAR. I've done some LiDAR of it, and I've looked at a lot of elevation maps, and I think what expresses it best is the road that's there, right where that winery was. It was called Sunny Slope. So I mean, it's southern-facing, right? So the higher elevation's at the north side, and it slopes down to the south. So that seems like a pretty good situation for a vineyard.

Tyler Bertsch

Yep.

Cindy Drake

Yeah, and even today, you know, there are portions, it's just like some gullies and things like that, that it's in people's backyards and, they really don't have anything to do with it. It's just like, it's no man's land with their nice new houses that have been built there in the last 25, 30 years. Most of them might be even 20 years, just in the last 20 years. But then there's these back behind, and there's separations. They own this area that they can't do anything with that's right behind in their backyard.

Tyler Bertsch

Maybe they should start planting grapes.

Cindy Drake

Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

So I guess to give people an idea of the scale of this, do you know how many pounds, gallons?

Ben Kruse

Yeah. Well, I'll give you an idea that there's two cellars, right? And one of them collapsed or at least partially collapsed. They don't know if it was fully collapsed or just partially collapsed, but they never retrieved the wine. It's still down there, right? And that was supposedly, I think it was tens of thousands of gallons. I don't recall the exact numbers, either 20 or 50, but it's a lot, you know. So I mean, what is a cask, 55?

Tyler Bertsch

So it wasn't a small deal.

Cindy Drake

"Twenty, 20 pounds to the stock, the vineyard would yield in a single season 400,000 pounds of grapes, or 26,666 gallons of wine, worth at a low estimate of 70 cents per gallon wholesale, returning a gross income of nearly 20,000 for the product of nine acres."

Ben Kruse

Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

That's a lot of-

Cindy Drake

That's what he was reporting as what he was basing things on.

Ben Kruse

And to back up a little bit, I don't know that Julius, necessarily, his son didn't do that right away. He may have continued that the initial years. I couldn't find any documentation either way.

Cindy Drake

In December of 1895, when this article was written, Peter was saying, "There's now stored in this cave more than 5,000 gallons of wine of various ages, ranging from one to eight years old, and in quality and flavor, differing only as the age of the wine and the kind of grapes would influence it."

Tyler Bertsch

So what kind of grapes do we know that he grew?

Cindy Drake

Well, he said he had found that, "The four varieties of grapes best suited to the wine manufacturer and to these adheres in the preparation of his product. They furnish white, red, and yellow-colored wines, there being no substance used in the influence of changing the cask natural to the grape juice as it comes from the press. In fact, every precaution is taken to guard against the influence of new barrels in making the color. The barrel is thoroughly seasoned before it is put into use, in addition, is burned out as an additional precaution to preserve the purity of the wine. Old barrels that have been in use a year or more and which have gathered a coating of white stone, a deposit from the sugar of wine, are allowing this..." Let's see. I need to look, make sure I've got this correct here.

Tyler Bertsch

What, what article is it? And then I'll, I'll put it with the interview.

Cindy Drake

Yes. The article that it is, "There's Money in Grapes: Peter Pitts of Cass County's Fortunate Small Vineyard," and it appeared in the Omaha World-Herald, December 1st, 1895, page seven.

Ben Kruse

Yeah, I couldn't find any reference to the, to the type of grape, and I was disappointed because the only description of the wine I could find was that it was red, white, or yellow.

Cindy Drake

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

That hits about every kind of wine in the world. [chuckles]

Cindy Drake

Right. Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

But you did find something on Riesling. Do you still have that article and what it said?

Cindy Drake

Well, yeah, that's just that he had gotten... He'd received, Peter Pitts, this would have been in 1883, he had received 1,100 cuttings of the Riesling, the celebrated white wine grape of the Rhine.

Ben Kruse

My question is,  is that coming from Nursery Hill, or is that coming from a local provider?

Cindy Drake

Well, he says he's putting 10 acres... This is just talking about Peter, that he was putting 10 acres to a vineyard. He had put out 9,000 cuttings last spring of our best varieties.That's what we don't know what that line means.

Tyler Bertsch

Probably Concord, Delaware if I had to guess

Cindy Drake

Of our best varieties from Nebraska in 1883 that you might, yeah. And then he'd received 1,100 cuttings of the Riesling. So he would use the cuttings then to, to produce their own kind of wine.

That would be how they would develop a wine then that would be adaptable to growing in Nebraska, but doing the mixture of  varieties coming from Germany.

Tyler Bertsch

Yep.

Cindy Drake

Okay.

Tyler Bertsch

That's cool.

Cindy Drake

Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

Do you have any news articles or any descriptions anywhere that kind of talk about what the winery actually looked like or anything? I know you mentioned some cellars-

Cindy Drake

Oh, yeah

Cindy Drake

Yeah.

Ben Kruse

Well, the cellars are the big thing.

Cindy Drake

Yeah.

Ben Kruse

That's the Furnas article, which I'm sure you've read.

Cindy Drake

... mm-hmm, where it's like 12, 12-foot ceilings, you know, 12-foot wide, 140 feet long. Two of them, two of those, you know, it's huge.

Tyler Bertsch

Do we know when they were built? I can't remember. Does it say in the article?

Ben Kruse

Uh, it does not specifically say-

Cindy Drake

No

Ben Kruse

... but one came after the other, it wasn't the same time. And one of them, like I said, one of them collapsed…

Tyler Bertsch

So there's like two parallel rows? Is that kind of the vibe you got or one long-

Cindy Drake

No, it, it's... I think we thought that it sort of went together.

Tyler Bertsch

They built one section. Okay.

Ben Kruse

The reason we think that…. Somewhere there has to be a central area for both. The reason I say that is 'cause there's only one barn tall enough to accommodate any kind of elevator or something, right? So what configuration there was, is a mystery.

Cindy Drake

See, the way this article runs very continuously, you know, it's like it's saying, "He came to -" This article's being written in 1895. It says that he came to Nebraska 20 years before, so see, that would've been the 18... mid-1870s. And it goes on that he "spent his useful days in the vineyard and wine cellar, learning the cultivation of the grapes and the process of changing its juices into wine." And it said, "As soon as the new prairie farm had been reclaimed..." So see, he... It, it just jumps into it, that he's all at once, he's getting some land here in Nebraska, apparently, and he's reclaimed it from its wild state, "and he got the acres under the control of a system of cultivation that warranted a venture into fruit growing. He planned an experiment in grape culture, the results of which have been even more satisfactory than he hoped for." And then it goes on that he laid out the vineyard of several acres, and from it he had the wine varieties of grapes suited to the soil and climate. And, "The young vineyard came rapidly into bearing. A novel idea here presented itself, and the excavation of an underground wine cellar or cellar or cavern was commenced, going into the ground on a slant similar to the decline of an ordinary stairway. This descent continued until 30 feet perpendicular height below the surface was reached, then the wine cellar proper was commenced. This excavation was made 12 feet wide, 12 feet in height, and 140 feet in length."

Tyler Bertsch

Man, can you imagine the amount of labor?

Cindy Drake

To do that.

Tyler Bertsch

'Cause this is people with shovels, basically.

Ben Kruse

That's a lot

Cindy Drake

Yes, in the 1870s, 1880s.

Ben Kruse

You know, cemented, they describe it as, -

Cindy Drake

And then it says the wine-

Ben Kruse

Like banners.

Cindy Drake

Yeah, the, the wine-

Ben Kruse

I wonder if it was below... I'm just curious. I don't know much about the, soil here…

Cindy Drake

But then it had an additional opening to the cellar, accommodating the elevating or lowering of the barrels of wine. "The wine cave is cemented complete from top to bottom and as dry as the ordinary room in a dwelling, no indication of moisture being present. In addition to the entrance and elevator openings, there are two ventilators for carrying off the air when the cave is closed. In addition to the storage space, there had been added an annex 130 feet long and otherwise dimensional and finished like the original cave. The entrance to this wonderful underground cavern is by wooden steps down an easy stairway." And then it goes on about the storing of the 5,000 gallons of wine.

Tyler Bertsch

It's amazing we have that much detail in the article.

Cindy Drake

Yes

Tyler Bertsch

That's crazy.

Cindy Drake

Yeah

Ben Kruse

It's likely there's an overhead shot from the '40s where you can see the barn they're talking about, because the only structure that could support some kind of elevator appears there.

Cindy Drake

Because some of this probably would've been like, you know... Well, this photo that you found online less than a year after the Armistice Day parade, you know, some of these features and things right over the property, you know?

Tyler Bertsch

That's cool.

Cindy Drake

That could probably be looked at a little bit clearer online.

Ben Kruse

Yeah.

Cindy Drake

Whatever, but-

Tyler Bertsch

I'll have to put... I'll have to take that and post it or find where it's at and post it-

Cindy Drake

Yes

Tyler Bertsch

... so people can look at that. That's cool.

Ben Kruse

There's only one building that's still standing, and if it relates or not to this, this property, exactly, I don't know. But there is a house that when they subdivided the lots and left this building standing, and I don't know how old it is necessarily. I think it's older  from at least the, the first part of the 20th century.

Cindy Drake

Are you sure you're not thinking of his brother's property?

Ben Kruse

No, no. This is on...

Cindy Drake

This is part of that area?

Ben Kruse

Yeah.

Cindy Drake

Okay.

Ben Kruse

And it's... Somebody just built around it like it's a garage or a little outbuilding now. But it's, it's downhill, and I would think that this would, this, these cellars and things would be uphill. Um, so I don't know what relation, if at all, it has, but the property owner, Sid, you talked to him, didn't you? He's not a- he's not opposed to exploration.

Cindy Drake

... you, you mean the gu- you mean the, the family that owns the land?

Ben Kruse

Currently owns the land, yeah.

Cindy Drake

See, basically, I can show you the current map. It's the Golden Hill Subdivision, and this is how I determined when I went to visit people there, and going over with the overlay of the old maps and everything exactly, where we feel that the cave is crossing into two people's piece of property. And the one gentleman who owns the majority of it, where we would think maybe it's the upper part of the cave-... he is definitely interested in allowing to do some kind of ground penetrating radar or something to see if it, if it can actually be found there, and then it crosses over into his neighbor's property. At least that's the of putting this together between the maps and everything else, the description, the old maps of what land that was owned by the Peter Pitts family. So, yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

So with this cellar, were people going down in there? And when it's 100 degrees out, I would imagine they would... people would sit down in there and drink, or did you find anything on that?

Cindy Drake

We don't have any descriptions about that except by his grandson, his grandson-in-law.

Ben Kruse

Yeah, his granddaughter's husband.

Cindy Drake

Right.

Ben Kruse

Yeah.

Cindy Drake

Because in 1990, they were in the process of getting the Pioneer Award for having the land in the family for 100 years. And Peter pitz' granddaughter was sort of a local historian, and so a lot of this information she had compiled. But what makes this interesting, is that her husband had also grown up in the area, and so they may have been childhood sweethearts because he even remembers as being at the age of four, of going down into those cellars. And so then he's reflecting the stories that his father had told him about, saying, "You know, yeah, the people from town would come out here in the heat and come down to just go to the cellars to get out of the heat, and then, of course, drinking whatever wine they brought or whatever."

Ben Kruse

Yeah.

Cindy Drake

So it did become a place like that of because it was cooler.

Ben Kruse

He's the eyewitness who provides the testimony that there was at least a partial collapse. They decided to, just to leave it be. And so we don't... You know, you don't know if the whole cellar collapsed or if it was just a partial collapse, in which case, if it was a partial collapse, there may still be intact cellar space down there. So that happened prior to 1900.

Cindy Drake

No, it would have been after 1900.

Cindy Drake

Because it's the son, Julius. Julius is telling this future son-in-law of his-

Ben Kruse

Right.

Cindy Drake

He's telling him of what, about what had happened, that there had been this partial collapse, and they had lost so many gallons of wine that had been buried in when that collapse was, so.

Ben Kruse

But the other cellar was in use for quite some time after.

Cindy Drake

Yes.

Ben Kruse

If it wasn't demolished, it could very well still be intact today as well.

Tyler Bertsch

So what you're saying is there could be some 100-year-old wine down there?

Cindy Drake

Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

The oldest wine in Nebraska history could still be sitting under there.

Cindy Drake

It could still be buried in there.

Ben Kruse

Could very well be. And the other, the other wasn't... The other one actually could be a cellar. Didn't they reference it as a community cellar?

Cindy Drake

Yeah. They referenced it as what they call it on the old maps, Pleasant Ridge Farm, and so that sort of became a name.

Ben Kruse

Yeah.

Cindy Drake

They even went ahead and named the cemetery that. The cemetery where the Pitz is buried had a different name, but today is called Pleasant Ridge, but it was called Pleasant Ridge Farms. And that's where you get this... From this grandson-in-law, you get this impression, you know, that people still would come out there to that cellar and everything, but it was more just as sort of a social thing. And he was also implying that Julius was not that thrilled about it, you know, of them having drinking parties or things like that. He really wasn't that thrilled about it.

Ben Kruse

I think that was like a learning farm, wasn't it?

Cindy Drake

What's that?

Ben Kruse

Some kind of a learning farm.

Cindy Drake

A learning farm.

Ben Kruse

Wasn't that really what it was, though? I think that my recollection, and I could be confused anyway.

Cindy Drake

Yeah. But it's, it's sort of, as I said, it's a combination of what reading articles between what this grandson-in-law said versus what Peter, what Julius Pitz actually did with the rest of his life.

Tyler Bertsch

Yeah. So far as the radar, what would we need to see that deep?

Cindy Drake

You have to have some of this new radar that will go down at least 20 feet.

Ben Kruse

The conventional-

Cindy Drake

Conventional, yeah.

Ben Kruse

The conventional stuff that you could get locally doesn't go deep enough. The stuff that you would have to use is stuff they use for, like, oil explo- exploration, that's expensive to use. I think the most cost-effective way would be to get, if the landowner would allow it, would be just to drill some, some holes and probe for it.

Tyler Bertsch

Go till you hit some concrete?

Ben Kruse

Or a void, right?

Tyler Bertsch

Yeah.

Ben Kruse

Either way, I, I think that would be your most cost-effective way to find it, and I think you could probably lay out a grid and, have a pretty good statistical idea of how soon you would find it, you know? You gotta figure if that barn had the elevator and they're 140 feet, so you could draw a 140-foot circle around where that... Because we know where that barn exactly sat, you know?

Tyler Bertsch

So that's what was gonna be my next question: How close do you think you would get with... Do you know the exact spot?... so you know exactly where the cellar was, or within-

Tyler Bertsch

Where the top part was?

Ben Kruse

We know where the barn would be that had the elevator.

Tyler Bertsch

Oh, okay.

Ben Kruse

I would assume-

Tyler Bertsch

So it's right next to it, pretty much

Ben Kruse

... I would assume it would be right next to it.

Tyler Bertsch

Yeah.

Ben Kruse

So, I don't know. The city said it's been graded, you know, obviously, for this housing development. But if you do the math, there should be no more than 20 to 18 feet between your surface level and the ceiling of those cellars, right? So if you're going, if you're descending at a standard staircase, 30 to 35 feet you can kinda do the geometry, and you're probably not gonna have to go that far down. My question is, how far again, I- southeast Nebraska is a different animal than what I'm used to for the rest of Nebraska, where you just have a bunch of loess sitting around. But it could it be that it's actually a bed rock? I don't know. You know, if there's some sandstone down there or limestone.

Tyler Bertsch

Yeah, in this part of Nebraska, I would imagine, I think it would stay about 52 degrees-ish. I'm not a geologist, but I would say about 52 degrees. So they would keep... You know, that would be ideal for what they could store.

Ben Kruse

Ground-penetrating radar could detect, just like a, somebody you could have come out from Lincoln, who does it. They're retired, and they do it. There's guys who do that. You could detect the shafts. So if you have ventilation shafts in a stairwell. My issue with this, though, is there's gonna be other features. I think it might be hard to determine that you're actually looking at a shaft. How do you know you're not looking at an old well or something? You know. So I think, I think the easy-peasy is a drilling rig out there, and you just pop some holes in there with a GoPro camera. And I think that, I mean, in my opinion, um, somebody might take an interest in funding that, you know, if a documentary on NET or something, you know?

Tyler Bertsch

Yeah.

Ben Kruse

That's the most intriguing part of this.

Cindy Drake

And, and when you have this clear description being given in the paper from the original owner, you know, of... Where would you have such description? Sure, it'd be great if we had-

Tyler Bertsch

That is such detail.

Cindy Drake

Yes.

Ben Kruse

Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

Well, I mean, you think about it that's an insane amount of labor.

Ben Kruse

Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

That was a big operation. I mean, that probably took you know, tens of people.

Ben Kruse

That's why it was interesting to hear more about it. But at the time, I think, you know, this was taking place even in the '90s there's not a lot of journalists around.

Tyler Bertsch

Right. Yeah.

Ben Kruse

There are still references, though, just casually you'll see, uh, "So-and-so, you know, ran from the sheriff, and they found him down by the Pitz cellars or down by the cellars,". And so, you know, it's out there. You know, people know about it, locally, but...

Tyler Bertsch

So it all stopped in 1899, right?

Cindy Drake

He had the heart attack in 1899, and from there on, it's just... You follow the trail then of his wife dying in 1905. So she dies five years later. And Julius takes the place over, apparently, but we only know that is through the years with what he's doing, with bits and pieces of what he's doing. Not only he becomes involved in local government, he also becomes a little bit... he plants flowers, spireas in town. But the only other thing is that you, from the grandson-in-law, you get the detail that he really just became more of a truck farmer, and then that all ties in then with his uncle. And then there's the National R- uh, the... His uncle's farm then, which was a few miles away, is on the National Register, and, I have the documentations of that, and with- there's also family there, of course, to even ask, you know. They have their own little barn that they use, and they said they used to have a small cellar that they filled in. But you just get the impression that he and his uncle had more of the same likes of where they wanted to do things, of being, these truck farmers, instead of having a winery.

Ben Kruse

Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

Yeah, it's hard work. It's hard work today even.

Cindy Drake

Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

All the people listening to this will understand-

Cindy Drake

Yeah

Tyler Bertsch

... it's, it's not easy. I can only imagine in the late 1800s, it-

Cindy Drake

Yeah

Tyler Bertsch

... they didn't have any of the insecticides and fungicides and all that.

Ben Kruse

They're just selling, and that might be a way... Actually, come to think of it, that solves what gra- grapes they used because it does say what grapes they are. If you go and look in the newspapers, uh, it will say, like, there's, there's a little bit of a lull, 1899, then right after that, you don't hear anything. And then, you know, right about the time his mom passes in that area, maybe a little before, you start hearing like: "Oh, we got a lot of grapes in there. We got Concord, and we got..." You know, but I think they name the, the types of grapes they have. "Come get them for 3 cents a pound," or whatever.

Tyler Bertsch

Yeah.

Ben Kruse

They're trying to get rid of them, you know?

Cindy Drake

See, I don't, I don't remember getting any of them to copy, so that must have been the research when you kept following.

Ben Kruse

Yeah. it was clear to me they weren't, were not in the wine business anymore, you know, but that they still had these grapes growing.

Tyler Bertsch

They were probably selling them as just table grapes-

Ben Kruse

Yeah

Tyler Bertsch

... and sending them to Omaha

Ben Kruse

Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

That makes sense.

Cindy Drake

Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

Are there any other interesting details I haven't asked about, or things that-

Cindy Drake

I think, like I said, whats interesting the types of interpretation that you can make with what the grandson-in-law says in this in 1990 article.

Ben Kruse

Do you have that article?

Cindy Drake

Yes.

Cindy Drake

I do

Ben Kruse

Because that's the best, that's the best article there is. And you're the one that found that.

Cindy Drake

Yeah. I said, I apologize that I didn't get more of my stuff organized today.

Ben Kruse

Oh, no, you're good.

Cindy Drake

Yeah, see, in 1992, Rock Bluff Vineyard, not the first to produce local grapes. And see, that's then when it's... "In 1870, Peter Pitts came to Cass County and homesteaded approximately 13 acres of property in the Rock Bluff area. There, he planted one of Cass County's earliest vineyards, and later built the county's first winery." So when it says that he homesteaded approximately 15 acres of property in the Rock Bluff area, I don't know if that is separate-

Ben Kruse

Yes, we've had that conversation before, where because there is a sliver of Peter Pitts' land, right?

Cindy Drake

Yes.

Ben Kruse

Along the river.

Cindy Drake

Yes.

Ben Kruse

It's really small, though.

Cindy Drake

Yeah.

Ben Kruse

I would not go there and be like, "Oh, this is a great place to grow grapes," But any- I guess anything's possible.

Cindy Drake

Yes, I'm so glad he brought that up. That's right. There is on the maps that he did have a small sliver of land, and I think I always thought that it was more connected with his brother.

Ben Kruse

Yeah.

Cindy Drake

But his brother may have extended up from it.

Ben Kruse

Yeah, and I, I think that specifically it did, did say Peter Pitz..

Cindy Drake

Right.

Ben Kruse

So there is that, but... And that is by Rock Bluff, but it's... The problem is that the, there's clearly no buildings out there. There isnt anything there that would make me think this is where this happened.

Cindy Drake

Right.

Ben Kruse

You know, so-

Cindy Drake

And see, this article continues on, and then this ties into it, too. I have not gone through this legal description completely, but something that I found after I did this program: in 1955, his granddaughter was filing papers. At that time, it... She must have maybe had had some problems legally with one of her aunts or something about, claims to the property. And, they filed a court case that they had never established, probated Peter Pitts's land, and it probated his property from when he died before 1900. Because the article-  legal notices. Okay, let's see. This was filed May, May of 1955, and that they were going to the state of Nebraska, Clarence Cutrell and Margaret Ann Cutrell, filed their petition alleging that Peter Pitts died in state prior to 1900, being a resident and inhabitant of Cass County, Nebraska, and died, seized of the following trends described real estate. And then it gives all this legal description of land and everything, leaving as his sole and only heirs-at-law, and then it names, you know, her father, Julius, and his two sisters, and his widow, who under law then in force, became entitled to a dower interest in said real estate. So in 1955, they were still... They just settled then Peter Pitz's estate then. So if you'd study through all of this, probably then what Ben and I have assumed in about this, the Rock Bluff that's mentioned by the grandson-in-law in 1990, that's maybe have been all of this got settled. But anyway, Clarence remembers the winery, although it was used in later years as a garage and a cob shed. In its prime, the winery consists of a large two-story frame building. The grapes were processed in the building, and the finished wine was stored and aged in two large caves deep under the structure. The winery was torn down in 1968, and the property turned into farm ground. Wine production at... let's see, at the site, had ceased in 1920. So this is what the grandson-in-law is saying.

Ben Kruse

So it's quite a ways after.

Cindy Drake

Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

So Prohibition-

Cindy Drake

Yeah

Tyler Bertsch

... took it out. Yeah.

Ben Kruse

Yeah, yeah.

Cindy Drake

"And Peter Pitts' eldest son never produced wine at the farm. While he would have an occasional glass of wine, Clarence said he did not hold with the excessive drinking that would take place at the winery from time to time. Apparently, Plattsmouth businessmen would venture south to the winery for a day and indulge in the fruits of the vineyard." So, you know, Julius was a young man then-... w- when, you know, when his father passed away. Um, uh, you know, and, and, and so this is why it's hard to determine when this was all happening. Was this all happening during his father's lifetime, short lifetime, [chuckles] of the winery, or was it happening in that 10 years after his father passed away? You know, y- you don't know. "Visitors would be entertained in the deep aging rooms, since they probably served as a wonderful respite from the ground-level heat. When Clarence was four years old, he remembers being shown the first chamber of the cave and being told the second chamber had caved in." So of course, he would have to have been told this by Julius. And then he said... It says, "His father and Julius both told him that wine was still stored in the second cave when it collapsed, and that the barrels of wines were never recovered." Well, see, this, this article in 1992 is where, you know, ties in with everything that you've... Because you don't have anything else to substantiate it, except the memories of this grandson-in-law.

Tyler Bertsch

Yeah.

Cindy Drake

Okay.

Tyler Bertsch

Last question.

Cindy Drake

Okay.

Tyler Bertsch

If you could write the inscription for the historical marker on Sunny Slope Drive today, what are the three most important things people should know about Peter Pitz, or what are the most interesting facts?

Cindy Drake

Well, I think it should be brought up about his heritage and the wine in the Rhine River area, grape growing. And, you know, maybe if we did some more research with Germany, just like you said, you found that Facebook entry, you know, something like that, you know, you might be able to find out more, just pinpointing who he was. That should from his background, how he got to Nebraska, you know, it'd be nice if we could get a little bit more detail on that. Then just saying, this is the first documented description of a winery in Nebraska, as well as the use of wines of developing a vineyard, of using the finest grapes from Germany, combined with the best grapes in Nebraska. Those are just sort of the things to me would be the topics.

Tyler Bertsch

Ben, what do you think?

Ben Kruse

Well, it's, it's definitely a first. That's always something, right? You know, in Nebraska history. And I, and I am curious how many wineries existed between the Missouri River, um, and California, you know, at that time. Because it would be interesting if this were the last one before you got to the coast. And then I just think that the engineering marvel for what it was, you know, I think those are the things that people would be most interested in.

Cindy Drake

Maybe you've also heard of this book, A History of Wine in America, Volume I. Okay, you know, it mentions that it mentions Peter Pitts as at least the one wine grower who was active in Nebraska. You know, he's listed.

Ben Kruse

That's the same book that talks about the, the blight in Europe, and Nebraska kind of saving the day.

Cindy Drake

And there was also this website, The Gilded Age, you know, I don't know. They, they say 1890, so first vineyard in Nebraska was 12 acres planted by Peter Pitts near Plattsmouth, and they are referencing the Sotheby's Wine Encyclopedia out of, out of London, printed in 2005.

Tyler Bertsch

That's kind of an insane reference.

Maybe that's a trail to go down, too.

Cindy Drake

Yeah.

Tyler Bertsch

How did, how did they know that?

Cindy Drake

Yeah. Some of this, though, is they, they might have seen the article by Robert Furnas.

Tyler Bertsch

Right.

Cindy Drake

Probably been more likely of seeing the article by Robert Furnas than this one, of this original one from Wisconsin. But there you go again, that Wisconsin tie all comes into about something with his wife having relatives with Wisconsin, so.

Ben Kruse

I think if something like that were intact, I don't know the legal, how it would work legally or, you know, if it would ever be practical, but what a place to go, if that place were still existing and, you know, say it were safe to visitthat'd be something, you know?

Cindy Drake

I'm thinking of Robber's Cave.

Ben Kruse

Yeah, it would be like something like that. Uh, FYI, just off the record, I'll have a couple things to share with you, too, about some details that are tangentially related. But-

Tyler Bertsch

All right. Well, I appreciate it.

Cindy Drake

Okay.

Tyler Bertsch

Thank you so much.

Ben Kruse

You betcha.