In 1860, George Schlenk opened a brewery in his name on a large tract of land that ran from the southern border of what would become the Williams’ property south to what is now Sinnissippi Park. It included much of the land on which Keith school and its sports field currently sit, plus additional land to the south of the school. The Schlenk Brewery operated under that name from 1860 – 1875. Schlenk then sold the brewery to one William Twogood who operated it under the name of the Oak Grove Brewery until 1878 at which time it apparently went out of business.

It is believed that the brewery sat empty until the building was purchased by Fred (Louise) Shoudy in 1903. The Shoudys renovated the brewery and converted it into a forty-room mansion home in which they lived for the next seventeen years. In addition to the many usual amenities of a mansion, the Shoudy home sported a third-floor bowling alley, a ballroom and a dumb waiter that ran between the several floors. A carriage house was built behind the main house.

In 1920, two years after Fred died, the Shoudy family sold the house to Dr. Darwin (Bell Emerson) Keith. Mrs. Keith needed additional space for her four-year old, but rapidly growing private school. The school had originally been housed in what today is known as the Emerson House (420 N. Main St.) in downtown Rockford. Keith school then moved and operated in the former Shoudy mansion until home was razed in 1971 (a year after the burning of the neighboring Williams’ home) and was replaced at the same site by the first portion of the current school known as the “lower” school. Click here for photos of the house when it was used as Keith School.