# Waconia Brewery *Early business in Waconia, Carver County, Minnesota; subject of an at-issue pair on Carver County brewing history.* The Waconia Brewery was an early business in [[Waconia]], a city in Carver County, [[Minnesota]]. The [[Minnesota Historical Society]]'s MNopedia entry for the city lists the brewery among the town's early businesses.[^1] The record does not establish when the brewery opened or closed, who founded or operated it, or what it produced.[^1] The brewery is the one point of Carver County brewing history that the project's sources confirm. The project's Carver County history file reports that the claim that [[Chaska]] was a prominent pre-Prohibition brewing town rests on a single lifestyle-magazine profile of a modern brewery. According to the file, that profile names no historic brewery, brewer, or date, and the file records the claim as unverified.[^2] The Society's *Breweries in Minnesota* research guide lists no Carver County brewery among its collections.[^3] The file also reports that the [[Chaska Brick documentation form]], which it describes as an exhaustive catalogue of Chaska industry, mentions no brewery.[^2] Against these sources, the file finds the Waconia Brewery to be the only one confirmed by an archival-grade source.[^2][^1] ## Who The record does not name a founder, owner, or brewer of the Waconia Brewery.[^1] MNopedia places the brewery among the businesses of a town platted in March 1857. The town's first homes were built by Ludwig Sudheimer and Michael Scheidnagel. Germans arrived in numbers from 1857, and settlers from Bohemia, Sweden and Switzerland followed.[^1] St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church was organized there in 1857 and built in 1858 at a cost of $600.[^1] Waconia became a village in 1880 and a city in 1921. Its name comes from the [[Dakota]] *Bdé Wakonia*, "lake of the fountain".[^1] ## In the at-issue record At-issue pair AI-Carver-051 sets two items side by side. The first is the Waconia Brewery, which MNopedia lists as one of the city's early businesses.[^1] The second is the claim that Chaska was a prominent pre-Prohibition brewing town. The pair records this claim as unverified because it rests on a single modern-brewery profile.[^2] The Minnesota Historical Society brewery guide lists no Carver County brewery among its collections, and the pair cites it for that absence.[^3] The pair also cites the Chaska Brick documentation form, which mentions no brewery.[^2] The record therefore confirms a Waconia brewery but does not establish a historic Chaska one.[^1][^2] ## In the Minnesota record ### Who - MNopedia's entry for the city of Waconia names the Waconia Brewery among the town's early businesses. It names no brewer or owner.[^1] ### Where - The brewery was in Waconia, Carver County, a town platted in March 1857.[^1] ## Notes [^1]: Minnesota Historical Society, *MNopedia: City of Waconia* (cited in the project's Carver County history file, 2026-09-02). It establishes that the town was platted in March 1857 and that its name comes from the Dakota *Bdé Wakonia*. It also establishes the settlement from 1857, the $600 church of 1858, village status in 1880 and city status in 1921, and lists the Waconia Brewery among the town's early businesses. https://www.mnhs.org/mnopedia/search/index/place/city-waconia [^2]: Minnesota wiki, *Carver County History (sourced)*, note 40, and at-issue pair AI-Carver-051 (2026-09-02). These are the project's findings that the Chaska brewing claim is unverified and rests on a single lifestyle-magazine profile of a modern brewery. They also record that the Chaska Brick documentation form mentions no brewery and that only the Waconia Brewery is confirmed. The source the note cites is the Minnesota Historical Society brewery guide. https://libguides.mnhs.org/breweries [^3]: Minnesota Historical Society, *Breweries in Minnesota* research guide (cited 2026-09-02). It lists no Carver County brewery among its collections. https://libguides.mnhs.org/breweries