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The Schlitz brew house at the Schlitz Industrial Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin was originally erected in 1890. It's brew house has been shut down since 1982. Schlitz was favorably known as “the beer that made Milwaukee famous”. Another famous Milwaukee beer brand, Pabst purchased controlling shares of Schlitz in 1999 with its acquisition of the Stroh Brewery Company.

Schlitz first became the world's top beer producer in 1902 and enjoyed that status at several points during the first half of the twentieth century, exchanging the title with Anheuser-Busch multiple times during the 1950s.

The company began to succeed after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, when Schlitz donated thousands of barrels of beer to that city, which had lost most of its breweries. He quickly opened a distribution point there, beginning a national expansion. Schlitz built dozens of tied houses in Chicago, most with a concrete relief of the company logo embedded in the brickwork; several of these buildings survive today, including Schuba's Tavern at the corner of Belmont and Southport.