The Case of the Missing Brew Master
Update August 2023
Believe it or not, this story was seen by family members of Joseph Trimborn in Germany! They came all the way to our museum to share some information and photos. We were able to fill in some details for the family about Mr. Trimborn’s death. How amazing is that! Thank you to the Fischer family for the only photo we have of Joseph Trimborn and his wife and the copies of family information you shared with us!
Joseph Trimborn and his wife
Also we would like to correct that Mrs. Trimborn (listed as Yetta) is actually named Gertrude (Greta).
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In 1983, an associate professor of criminal justice at the College of Great Falls, Professor Raymond Walters, was working on his doctoral thesis. He came across a clipping from the New York Times referring to the 1899 disappearance of a Great Falls man in New York City. That man was Joseph Trimborn, brew master at the Montana Brewing Company. Curious as to what may have become of the man, he conducted a lengthy investigation and came up with possible solutions to the unsolved missing person’s case.
Prof. Raymond Walters gave a presentation on his findings and donated the written talk along with illustrations made by his wife, Linda Walters, to The History Museum Archives.
The following is what he wrote.
After an apprenticeship with his father that lasted through his teens, Trimborn then entered and graduated from “The Brewers Academy at Worms on the Rhine,” followed by positions of increasing importance at breweries in the cities of Munich and Stuttgart, culminating with his being engaged as assistant brew master to the “Royal Brew House of Wurzburg, Bavaria.”
Illustration of Joseph Trimborn by Linda Walters
In 1877 at twenty-five years of age, he came to America with his wife Yetta and their two children, having been engaged by the Bartholemy Brewing Company of Rochester, New York, as brew master. A move that was to start him on the path that would lead across three-quarters of the continent of the United States, ending twenty-two years later with his disappearance almost at the exact spot where he had first set foot in this country.
After two years in New York, Trimborn accepted in 1879 a position in Butte, Montana (the Copper Camp), as brew master to the Centennial Brewing Company where he remained until 1883 [archivist’s note: the date was 1884], at which time he moved to Salt Lake City, the same year Paris Gibson founded the city of Great Falls.
The next nine years of his life were spent in Salt Lake, first as brew master for the California Brewing Company and then as brew master for the Henry Wegner Brewing Company. It was at the end of this period, in 1892, at forty years of age that he made the decision which he hoped would allow him to accomplish what his father had before him in Germany, the establishment of his own brewery.
Thus, in 1892, Joseph Trimborn moved to Great Falls, Montana, with the intention of opening what was to be one of the most modern and up-to-date breweries in the country.
On October 2nd, 1892, the articles of incorporation for the “Montana Brewing Company of Great Falls” were filed with the Cascade County clerk, listing as the three principals and trustees of the corporation Mr. A.F. Schmitz, part-owner of the Milwaukee Beer Hall (1st Ave South and 2nd Street), Mr. J. H. Johnson, part-owner of the Houston and Johnson Real Estate (13 3rd Street South), and Joseph Trimborn.
Illustration of the Montana Brewery by Linda Walters
The initial capital stock of the company was to be two-hundred and fifty-thousand dollars, divided into twenty-five thousand shares at ten dollars each, with Trimborn, Schmitz and Johnson holding the majority of the stock.
Almost immediately the company ran into financial difficulty as it was at this time that the country entered a period that the newspapers of the day called a “financial crisis.”
Trimborn in an attempt to save the corporation went to St. Louis and borrowed additional monies from the “International Bank” of that city; these funds, however, provided only a short period of respite for the struggling company and by mid-1893 the Montana Brewing Company was on the verge of collapse.
It was at this time that three prominent Great Fall’s men, John J. Ellis (a Montana pioneer of 1864), Fred G. Johnson and Stuard R. Jensen (owners of the Cascade Steam Laundry) came to the rescue of the ailing business.
Illustration of John J. Ellis, Montana pioneer of 1864 by Linda Walters
Illustration of Fred G. Johnson, co-owner of the Cascade Steam Laundry by Linda Walters
Illustration of Stuard R. Jensen, co-owner of Cascade Steam Laundry by Linda Walters
Ellis, Johnson, and Jensen purchased the interests of Trimborn’s two partners and most of Trimborn’s as well, but retained Trimborn as brew master and general manager of the corporation. With the involvement of these three men and the financial resources at their disposal the company was saved and by mid-1894 was in full operation, distributing its product throughout a two-hundred mile radius of Great Falls.
By 1899 the Montana Brewing Company was one of the most successful businesses in the state, with much of the credit being given to its brew master and general manager, Joseph Trimborn, who was responsible for a number of its innovations, including the construction of a malt plant on the company grounds which enabled the brewery to process its own hops, and at the same time opened up an entirely new market for Montana Farmers.
It was at this point, in April of 1899, that Joseph Trimborn journeyed to New York, a trip that was to end in mystery, with his unsolved disappearance from the Grand Hotel in that city.
Photograph of the Grand Hotel, New York City
Early in March 1899, Trimborn’s wife Yetta had traveled to New York with their two children to book passage to Germany, the purpose of the trip being to enroll their children in school at Cologne.
After completing these arrangements in Germany, Mrs. Trimborn wired her husband that she would be returning to New York on May 2nd; Mr. Trimborn sent a reply indicating that he would register at the Grand Hotel in that city and meet her when she docked.
When her husband failed to meet her upon her arrival, Mrs. Trimborn went to the Grand Hotel where she found that her husband had checked in on the afternoon of April 30th, and after depositing a large sum of money in the hotel safe had gone out to view the city; he never returned.
The New York Police conducted a major search of the city but no trace of Trimborn was ever found; there were rumors that he had been seen in Boston and Washington City (Washington D. C.), and his wife, initially giving credit to these sightings, declared that she felt he was insane.
These sightings were never substantiated, however, despite the offering of a $500.00 reward for information by his company, visits to these cities by Mrs. Trimborn, and the cooperation of the local police who conducted extensive investigations.
Disparing [sic] of her husband ever returning, Mrs. Trimborn retained Great Falls lawyer J. A. Largent to look after her interests and returned to Germany in the fall of 1899 where she remained until her death.
Today, as then, a number of unanswered questions remain; Did Joseph Trimborn abandon his family and if so why? Did his disappearance have anything to do with the brewing company? Was he murdered, and if he was, why wasn’t his body found; and why didn’t the police investigations turn up anything?
After an exhaustive examination of all available records, many of which were found with only extreme difficulty and by following up every clue no matter how remote, it now appears that he either committed suicide or was murdered.
Trimborn’s problems appear to begin and end with the Montana Brewing Company, for despite the saving of the company by Ellis, Johnson, and Jensen, Trimborn was on the verge of financial ruin, something that never became public knowledge.
To keep from losing everything he had worked for, he had place all of his personal property in the name of his wife and transferred his remaining brewery stock to S.R. Jensen in a secret trust for her.
Additionally, in 1894 the Volk Brothers Brewery, the first to be opened in Great Falls, had burned down just as the Montana Brewing Company opened, and it appears that this occurrence was being re-examined with Trimborn’s name looked at in connection with it. [archivist’s note: The Volk brewery was burned down in 1896 not 1894 but the connection may be true?] Also, the International Bank of St. Louis had never been repaid and was instituting suit to recover its money; any or all of these factors could have been the reason for him to consider suicide.
As to the possibility of murder, despite having deposited a large amount of money in the safe of the Grand Hotel upon his arrival, Trimborn was known to still have a considerable sum on his person when he left the hotel that evening. It also appears that he may have registered with a female companion at the Busch Hotel, Hoboken, that same evening under the name of Joseph Primban, raising the possibility that he was in the company of a “Lady of the Evening” and may have been murdered for his money by her, or her associates.
As to why his body was never recovered or any evidence ever discovered by the police, it now appears that his body or at least parts of it were found, and that either through a police cover-up or ignorance on the part of the medical examiner, it was never identified as Trimborn’s.
For on June 11th, 1899, a fragment of a human body, with head, arms, and shoulders missing, and the legs below the knees, floated into the East River Basin of the Crescent Athletic Club Boathouse, at the foot of Eighty-Fifth Street, Bay Bridge, Brooklyn; the general characteristics of the body match those of Joseph Trimborn.
Two days later on June 13th, 1899, additional parts of the body, consisting of the upper part of the chest and part of the head, as far up as the bridge of the nose, and the left arm were recovered when they were found floating in the vicinity of 42nd Street in the East River. Several hours later the left arm was found floating in Buttermilk Channel off Atlantic Dock in the part of the channel known as The Gap.
If this body was indeed Trimborn’s, two questions must be answered: why wasn’t it identified as his? And how did the body come to be in the river in the mutilated condition in which it was found?
Photograph of the East River, New York City
Three factors could account for this. First, there had been a previous murder in which the body of a Mr. Guldesuppe had been found in a similarly mutilated condition; now, this second body once again focused unfavorable attention on the police and caused a considerable amount of alarm among the general public, an obvious incentive to rapidly close the case.
Secondly, the coroner system in New York at the time was so inefficient that many crimes were going undetected or unsolved. This situation resulted in the city establishing the office of medical examiner in 1918, but it was nineteen years too late to assist in the Trimborn case.
Finally, the body was too mutilated to provide accurate identification and Mrs. Trimborn was never provided the opportunity to view what remains had been recovered.
If we accept the idea that the body found was Trimborn’s the possibility that he may have committed suicide can be discounted due to a number of factors, the foremost of these being that the initial investigation indicated that the body had been severed in most instance by a sharp instrument such as a knife or cleaver, and other portions by what appeared to be a hacksaw; the left leg, for example, had been partially sawed and then broken the rest of the way through.
In addition to other attempts to disfigure the body, all clothing had been removed and a number of the teeth appeared to have been knocked out.
In the final analysis however, the physical characteristics of the body match those of Trimborn, and it featured a moustache of the same general coloring and shape of his; the remains also appeared to have been in the water from approximately the date of his disappearance.
On June 18th, 1899, eight days after the first portion of the body had been discovered, it was buried in an unmarked grave in Potter’s Field, Flatbush; the identity and manner of death as much a mystery to the citizens of New York as Joseph Trimborn’s disappearance was to the citizens of Great Falls.
With a historical investigation, particularly in a situation such as this where so few records remain, any conclusions are just that, conclusions. In the case of Joseph Trimborn I [Professor Walters] feel I have traced as accurately as possible his life up to the time of disappearance. Whether or not my theory that he was murdered is correct and the body found his, we may never know for sure, but the possibility is there.
As a final footnote, there is evidence available to provide us with a villain for this story. In June of 1899, a New York gang leader by the name of McGuire, along with several of his followers, was arrested for assault and robbery; the gang’s method of operation was to beat and rob their victims, strip them of their clothing, and throw them into the river.
Prof. Walters credits his success in finding information to the following people:
Esther Bender, Clerk of the Cascade County District Court
Richard Thoroughman, Cascade County Superintendent of Buildings
Marge Foote, Great Falls Tribune Librarian
Una Koontz, Acting Head Librarian of the College of Great Falls
The staff of the Great Falls Public Library, who he indicates “went out of their way to provide me with all the assistance and resources at their disposal.”