In 1844,
cooper David Kuntz of
Wiesbaden, Germany established a brewery at the present day location of the Huether Hotel, one of four breweries in the village of
Waterloo, Ontario. In the mid-1850s, he moved to start the Spring Brewery at the corner of
King and William Streets. In 1856, Adam Huether of
Baden, Germany arrived in Waterloo, taking the business over and renaming it the Lion Brewery. A small hotel was built in 1855 with most of the existing building having been built in 1870. In the 1880s, Huether's brother Christopher expanded the hotel with a new
mansard roof and
iron cresting, made in the same style as the new Waterloo Town Hall. More renovations were carried out in the 1890s, adding a
façade on King Street with stone-capped arched windows, an
Etruscan tower and several balconies overlooking King and Princess Streets. These renovations established the building in the style of
High Victorian. The hotel possessed forty "well-lighted" rooms and seven
parlours, renting rooms for one
dollar per day, and advertised their menu as having "all the delicacies of the season, as well as the substantials. " The Lion Brewery advertised its beer as having "a widespread reputation through
Perth and
Waterloo counties." Christopher Huether died in 1898, and the brewery and hotel were auctioned off to Theresa Kuntz the following year. Beginning in 1857, Waterloo used a ceremonial cannon to fire a 21 gun salute each 24 May to celebrate
Queen Victoria's birthday. The annual salute was temporarily stopped and moved to a safer location after a cannon "discharged prematurely, and the hardwood ramrod, with the force of a cannon ball, killed a man who was watching the proceedings outside Huether's Hotel two blocks away, severing the head from the body." ==See also==