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Brewery to open on site that housed first Sierra Vista building

Brewery to open on site that housed first Sierra Vista building
Posted at 6:42 AM, Feb 14, 2022
and last updated 2022-02-15 16:39:30-05

SIERRA VISTA, Ariz. (KGUN) — Construction has begun for a new brewery at a site that used to hold the Sierra Vista's first building. The site held the first structure ever built outside the gates of Fort Huachuca. It was constructed in 1905, in the Wild West.

“He originally built it as an 8-room bar brothel and dance hall, so it was really the first thing in our early community,” said Elizabeth Wrozek, Sierra Vista Museum Curator.

Over the years, the building changed hands, becoming a general store and post office in 1917 and a restaurant in 1957. Today, much of the city remembers it as Daisy Mae’s Steakhouse.

“Daisy Mae’s opened their restaurant in 1993 and it operated as that for 20 years until it shuttered its doors for good in 2013,” Wrozek said.

After Daisy Mae’s closed, the building lost much of it’s former glory.

“The floor was falling through, the roof looked like it was going to come down,” Wrozek said.

Ponderosa Hotel Management, the current owners of the site, contacted Matt Brown to give the property new life.

“We looked at Daisy Mae’s we toured it, and we determined that building wasn’t going to work," said Matt Brown, Owner of Tombstone Brewing Company. "But this was a perfect spot for a brewery, the views and everything. It was too good.”

Sierra Vista’s Henry F. Hauser Museum took some artifacts, part of the bar, a spittoon, out of the building before it was demolished.

Now, the plan is to build a third branch of Tombstone Brewing Company, on the site.

“The idea of creating a soul for the city and us being able to be part of that at the ground level is an exciting prospect for us,” Brown said.

Brown is working with the city to incorporate the history into the new building.

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