Long before the Anheuser-Busch brewery was built in the San Fernando Valley in 1954, Southern California had close ties with the brewing company that today is in the middle of an international takeover battle.
Like many other wealthy industrialists of his time, co-founder Adolphus Busch adopted Pasadena as his winter home more than a century ago. There he built the first Busch Gardens, a vast outdoor attraction next to his mansion that he opened to the public.
The gardens served as a location for many movies in Hollywood's early decades. They were used in parts of "Frankenstein," "The Adventures of Robin Hood" and "Gone With the Wind," all filmed in the 1930s.
Busch also built an elegant restaurant called Sunset Inn that overlooked the sea at Ocean and Colorado avenues in Santa Monica. It was a popular destination for wealthy Angelenos and a high-profile target of prohibitionists.
The attractions are long gone, but in the 1960s the company brought back a more modern version of Busch Gardens at its Van Nuys brewery. It had boat rides for visitors, a monorail and a key attraction fondly remembered by many -- free beer.
"It was amazing," recalled Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge, who visited as a teenager. "It was a big treat to sit on the monorail and tour that big brewing plant."
Anheuser-Busch's reputation as America's top suds purveyor traces directly to Busch, a German immigrant in the brewery supply business who married the daughter of Eberhard Anheuser in 1861 in St. Louis.
Busch went to work in his father-in-law's struggling local brewery and helped turn it around. By the time Anheuser died in 1880, Budweiser had been introduced and the company was known as Anheuser-Busch Brewing Assn.
Under Busch's guidance, the brewery pioneered national distribution. By introducing pasteurization and artificial refrigeration it was able to put beer bottled in St. Louis on cooled rail cars destined for other cities across America.
Like other great capitalists of the Gilded Age, Busch enjoyed his wealth and fame. His moves were tracked by the press as he traveled in his plush private rail car. According to a biographer, Busch's grandson once recalled, "I was a big man when I was with him, and everything he touched turned to gold."
"Adolphus lived on a huge scale that stretched from Pasadena to New York to Germany, where he had his hunting estate," said Terry Ganey, coauthor of the 1992 book "Under the Influence: The Unauthorized Story of the Anheuser-Busch Dynasty."
