Joseph Schlitz (May 15, 1831 – May 7, 1875) was a German-American entrepreneur who made his fortune in the brewing industry. Early life Joseph Schlitz was born on May 15, 1831 in Mainz, Hesse-Darmstadt. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1850. Career In 1856, he assumed management of the Krug Brewery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1858 when he married Krug's widow, he changed the name of the company to the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. He became more successful after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Many of Chicago's breweries that had burned never reopened. Schlitz established a distribution point there and acquired a large part of the Chicago market. Death Schlitz perished with 340 others in the wreck of the SS Schiller in thick fog off the Isles of Scilly on May 7, 1875. The islands lie 26 miles west of Cornwall, England. Schlitz was returning via New York and Hamburg, visiting Germany. His body was never recovered. He was 43 years old. A cenotaph at Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee honors him. Personal life Schlitz was a Freemason and was affiliated with Aurora Lodge No. 30. Gallery See also Eberhard Anheuser Jacob Best Valentin Blatz Adolphus Busch Adolph Coors Gottlieb Heileman Frederick Miller Frederick Pabst August Uihlein References Further reading Uwe Spiekermann, "Political Revolution, Emigration, and Establishing a Regional Player in Brewing: August Krug and Joseph Schlitz." In Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present, vol. 2, edited by William J. Hausman and the German Historical Institute. Last modified September 19, 2016. External links 1831 births 1875 deaths American drink industry businesspeople German emigrants to the United States Businesspeople from Milwaukee Deaths due to shipwreck at sea American brewers 19th-century American businesspeople