Three Lemps shot themselves in the family mansion, Prohibition closed the brewery, and the house now sells haunted tours

Kind 1 and kind 2. Johann Adam Lemp arrived in St. Louis from Germany in 1838 and began brewing. His son William J. Lemp moved the brewery to its present site in 1864, and by the mid-1870s it was the largest in the city. Frederick Lemp, the son chosen to lead it, died in 1901 aged 28. On 13 February 1904 William Sr., 68, shot himself in his bedroom in the family mansion. His son William Jr., "Billy", took over. In 1909 Billy's wife Lillian sued for divorce in a trial covered across the country and won custody of their son and large alimony. Billy's sister Elsa shot herself on 19 or 20 March 1920, eleven days after remarrying the husband she had divorced. Prohibition closed the brewery. Billy sold the Falstaff trademark to Joseph Griesedieck, and in 1922 the plant was sold to the International Shoe Company for $588,000^†. Billy, 55, shot himself at the mansion in 1922. His brother Charles, the last of the family living there, shot himself in 1949 at 77; his note read "In case I am found dead blame it on no one but me." Edwin Lemp died in 1970 at 90 and is said to have had family heirlooms destroyed^†. The mansion became a boarding house in 1950 and is now a restaurant and inn that runs haunted tours.