Alexander Levin
From left to right: Alexander and Zenona Molina Levin, the Park Brewery in Downtown Tucson, a gathering at Levin’s Park
Alexander Levin was an early Jewish pioneer in Tucson who contributed much to the city’s development through the many institutions that he built.
Born in the Kingdom of Prussia in 1834, the origins of Levin’s arrival in the United States are obscure, though by the 1860s, he joined the numerous other Jews profiting from the lucrative mining industry along the Colorado River in La Paz. His lot was not to toil in the mines, but to find his own niche in that rugged environment, by opening up public baths as well as a brewery to refresh the local miners. By 1864, Levin had moved to Tucson, where he continued his work as a brewer. His first partnership was with a man named Frank Hodges, with whom he owned and ran the Pioneer Brewery. Their partnerships lasted three years, after which Levin bought Hodges out. Levin then began to work with Joseph Goldtree, a fellow pioneering Jew who was also from Prussia. Their brewery was noted for serving lager, ale, and porter and for serving lunches to clients as well.
During his time in Arizona, Levin became involved in cattle trading, which led him to take frequent trips to Mexico. It was during one such trip that he met and married his wife, Zenona Molina, who was originally from Hermosillo. The couple was wed sometime around 1873, the year in which Levin and Goldtree’s partnership came to an end. This was all the better, as Zenona became not only Alexander’s wife but his business partner as well, and the couple went on to work together to found many other establishments throughout Tucson. Their first enterprise was, naturally, another brewery, which they named the Park Brewery and opened up at the beginning of Pennington Street, selling porter, ale, sarsaparilla, and soda water. Levin also replicated his business practice from La Paz of opening up public baths - open to the male public, that is - to his clients. From this point forward, Zenona and Alexander’s enterprises saw a large expansion: they bought a hotel and several saloons where beer from their brewery was sold; the brewery was beautified with the addition of gardens; and a three-acre park was created around the brewery as well. Throughout the rest of the 1870s, the horizons of Levin’s Park, as his cluster of operations had become known, expanded even further, including the following amenities: flower and vegetable gardens, a dance floor, a restaurant, billiard tables, a space for playing croquet, a shooting gallery, an archery range, a bowling alley, and a roller skating rink. The Levins’ establishments were cherished in Tucson and Alexander understandably became a beloved figure, having taken the nickname Boss Levin.
Levin’s contributions to the city of Tucson were two-fold. The city was beautified and developed thanks to his businesses, but several of Levin’s works represented a real commitment to the public good, namely the public baths, the gardens, and his hall. Having a bath open to the male public would have been a great source of relief for heat-beleaguered Tucsonans. The baths, located on the grounds of Levin’s Park Brewery, were supplied with pure water from acequias (irrigation canals), and cigars and beer were sold to patrons as well. His parks, boasting all sorts of flowers, vegetables, fruits, and trees both native and foreign to Tucson, were not only cherished as an oasis of greenery in the dusty city, but were also free to be used for any ceremony or celebration by the public, most notably the Fiesta de San Agustin. Having noticed the lack of a meeting place meant for conducting city business, Levin had a venue built in 1878, named the Park Hall. Known for its opulent decor, it may have been Tucson’s first formal theater and opera house, and it is said that the first minyans ever held in Tucson were gathered in Levin’s hall. Levin’s entrepreneurship was marked by flashes of innovation, two of which have become mainstays around the world and have great utility during Tucson’s brutal summers: selling bottled water and cold beer.
The 1880s brought different fortunes to the Levins. The arrival of the railroad in Tucson brought an abundance of cold, cheap beer from California and the East Coast, adversely affecting the Park Brewery. Additionally, within the first years of the decade, Levin’s Park became more and more frequented by miscreants and drunkards. This behavior served to exacerbate rumors in public and in the press that Levin was encouraging this debauchery and that he himself was a debtor and gambler. Alexander and Zenona chose to lease out their brewery and in 1887 they left Tucson for Mexico, where they stayed for four years. Upon their return to Tucson in 1891, the couple found that their park had experienced great decline, as the newer Carillo gardens, located further outside of the city center, appealed more to the town’s upper crust. Not long after his return to the town where he left such an indelible imprint, Alexander Levin died of a heart attack on September 29, 1891, at the age of 58. He was buried with Catholic rites, in a Catholic cemetery in Tucson. His wife Zenona outlived Levin and was survived by their daughter Sara Levin Ronstadt and their son Alexander Junior, who passed away in 1902. None of Levin’s works can be found around the city today, due in large part to the sweeping urban renewal programs that began in the 1960s and are ongoing today.
Cholent and Chorizo, by Abraham Chanin
Jewish Settlers in the Arizona Territory, by Blaine Lamb
Photo credits: Arizona Historical Society