History: The Depot Hotel

John Walker owned and operated the short-lived Depot Hotel, located across Commercial Street from the Portland, Saco & Portsmouth Railroad. He built a brewhouse in the basement of the hotel, ca. 1851. The forty-one-year-old Walker owned $1200 in real estate. While operating the hotel, Walker was also trying to sell his property in the village of Livermore Falls in 1851.

John Walker set up a brewhouse in the basement of the Depot Hotel in 1851, across Commercial Street from the Portland, Saco & Portsmouth Railroad. F.W. Beers & Co., 1871. David Rumsey Historical Map Collection.

Walker’s eighteen-year-old son, also John, was listed as a “barkeeper” at the hotel. Another Walker living in the hotel—Tristram N., age 28—was listed as a “hack driver” and a porter; it’s unclear if he was related to John, but he too would try his hand at brewing in the following years.

It’s unclear if the brewery ever fully got off the ground: the hotel was out of business by late 1851. An advertisement pitched to potential renters of the building noted the brewery, with “two large rooms, large boilers set in brick, a never failing supply of pure water by an aquaduct; the whole well fitted up and in perfect order for a brewery.”

See the precise location of the Depot Hotel on the Maine Beer Map.