Beer sellers wives. It was Wednesday December 16, 1953, Dwight Eisenhower, a former Tacoman and commander at Fort Lewis was president, I-5 was being built and shockingly the half century old Columbia Breweries had changed their name to Heidelberg. The new brand brought marketers and sales people from all over the west, along with their wives, to a Christmas time gathering at the Winthop Hotel complete with formal banquets, movie excursions, shopping trips to the busy (pre-mall) downtown department stores and sightseeing junkets. Mid Century prosperity shows in the fashionable design of coats and hats and the extravagance of mink and fur. The shiny streamline Greyhound charter bus was a thing of luxury and exclusivity for these middle class women who still reflect a bit of the tight knit regimentation of post world war two America. But these are not church ladies and to them beer is a very good thing and Tacoma is the place for a good time.
tacoma history 