Did you know that this building was once used as a schoolhouse?

During the construction of Kingsley Dam at Lake McConaughy between 1939-1949, when the local population swelled with the influx of workers, Ogallala's American Legion Hall became known as South Ward School. The club rooms were converted into classrooms for kindergarten and first-grade students. It was not until several years later that it became the city library (1954-2020), and eventually, Second Chapter Brewing.

As we celebrate back-to-school season, here are a few pictures from that chapter in Ogallala's history. Locals might recognize a few faces!

Dr. H. Peter Reinkordt is donating his family's complete set of 1895 Meyers Konversations Lexikon (sort of the Britannica for German-speaking lands) to Second Chapter Brewing. Join him in the taproom on Thursday at 6:00 p.m. to learn about the provenance of these books, which have made their way from Soviet-occupied Estonia to the brewery in Ogallala, and for an informal discussion of German history and culture.

Come for great beer and great stories.

H. PETER REINKORDT

H. Peter Reinkordt, a Baltic German, who was born in Germany, and lived there until emigrating to the USA in 1956, after his parents fled from occupied Estonia in 1941, was Professor of German at Doane University, Crete. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska in 1972 in German Language and Literature. Reinkordt has taught at a private secondary school in Switzerland, at UNL, and Nebraska Wesleyan before settling at Doane College in 1984 and teaching there until 2011 full time, and as emeritus he taught one history course each fall until 2016.

While his areas of special interest and research are German literature of the 20th century as well as German history and culture, he taught the range of classes involving German language acquisition. His focus on contemporary history of Europe deals with fascism, the Holocaust and recent developments with special emphasis on Germany, particularly post-WW II and more recently unification of East and West Germany since the fall of the wall in 1989.

​In the seventies Reinkordt lived and worked in Switzerland for four years, traveling widely in Europe as well as through Asia and North Africa. He keeps in touch with current European events by yearly trips to Europe to gather information. ​