Henry Kraver
Henry Kraver was born in 1859 in Poland. He and his family immigrated to the United States in 1863 settling in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Even as a small child Henry was an industrious person. He began selling newspapers on the corner when he was 7 years old.
At the age of 19 he decided to leave his family in New York and travel by riverboat until he ran out of money and that is where he would start his new life. Henderson, Kentucky is where he finally ran out of money and got off the boat. The family to this day doesn’t know why he didn’t get off in Louisville, since it was a bigger city. Henderson is another 6 days by riverboat down the river from Louisville. Having no money and not knowing anyone in the area, Henry walked in the door of a restaurant and bar called Puckett’s. He asked the owner if he could sweep floors and live in the attic. The owner agreed and Henry Kraver got his start. A few years later Henry Kraver bought that bar.
Back in New York Henry had friends whose families were involved in the banking industry and that is what he aspired to be, a banker. Henry became friends with a prominent family in Henderson Kentucky who learned of his aspirations to be a banker. They saw the potential in Henry and sent him off to be trained by a bank in St. Louis that the family was using and had connections with. Henry spent 5 years there in St. Louis before returning to Henderson, KY. Upon his return Henry Kraver built the First National Bank of Henderson at the age of 32. He was President of the bank from the time he was 32 until he was 78 years old.
Yearning to grow his business empire Henry bought the Worsham distillery in Henderson, KY. At the time the Worsham distillery was a small distillery. Henry then bought 19 acres of land and built Kentucky Peerless, DSP-KY-50, to be one of the largest producing distilleries in the state of Kentucky. By 1900, production of Peerless Whiskey had risen from eight to two hundred barrels a day. Kraver also established a large wholesale house from which he claimed to be supplying 42 of the 50 saloons in Henderson with liquor. At one point the distillery had accumulated 63,000 barrels in inventory. Mr. Kraver also opened the Henderson Brewing Company. It was one of the largest breweries on the east side of the Mississippi. All of his distribution was by riverboat, that he owned, taking products between Cincinnati, OH and Owensboro, KY.
Henry Kraver saw that the growing prohibition movement was gaining momentum and in 1917 he closed the distillery a full two years before Prohibition was enacted. Henry was good friends with two brothers out of Chicago who bought 40,000 barrels of his inventory. Those two brothers were the Walgreen brothers. Also in 1917 Henry Kraver sold all of his stills to United Distillery in Vancouver, British Columbia. He also hired a young man, named Elmore Sherman, whom he considered to be the best copper welder in that part of the country. He asked Mr. Sherman to dismantle the stills in Henderson and then take them to Vancouver to be reassembled. Henry Kraver provided him with a house and schooling for his children. The entire process took about 16 months. You might know the name Sherman, as Elmore Sherman was the founder of Vendome Copper and Brass.
Henry Kraver didn’t stop there, he continued to sell his whiskey to American Medicinal Spirits all throughout prohibition. He also owned the world famous Palmer House hotel in Chicago. Henry Kraver had two children and was married to his wife Ida until 1935 when she passed away. Two years later in October Henry was on a visit to Chicago when he fell from a second story balcony at the Palmer House Hotel. One leg was badly injured and ultimately required amputation. Complications set in and Henry died in January 1938 at the age of 78. He is buried alongside his wife in Henderson, KY.
