Mr. Hermes was active in German associations and gave political speeches in the native tongue. In 1873 he founded a German language newspaper, Die Geganwelt, which lasted just one year. He started his saloon business in 1878 at 321 Scott Street, which was also his residence. By 1888, he had purchased property at Fourth and Court Streets and built the fine three-story building we know today. The Hermes family lived for a time on the second floor, and the third floor was “the most elegant and comfortable hall in the city… for balls, parties, and private assemblies.  Joseph Hermes continued in politics until the turn of the century and died in 1918.

In April 1899, the Hermes Building was used as a temporary City Hall while the courthouse (razed in 1976) was being constructed.? Sources do not disclose if the saloon was closed during this period, but a famous trial was held there. An African American named Bishop was accused of shooting Mox McCreary, a policeman. After the trial, the accused was promptly taken to the riverbank and hung.

1926 – Wolff Printing.

In the early part of the 20th Century, Alban Wolff, a native of Germany, moved to Covington. He owned a print shop in part of the Boone Block (across Fourth Street from the Hermes Building) and in 1926, he bought the Hermes Building for his printing presses for $20,000.

The print shop occupied the basement and first floor, and four large heavy presses in one room ran twelve hours a day. The floor would rock, but the 3 x 12-inch beams held, a native of Germany built this building, after all. The second and third floors were made into apartments. The third-floor ceiling was so high Alban Wolff constructed an additional floor above the third level into a fourth story, thereby providing a children’s play area and space for hanging laundry. The windows were so large that both floors had light. In the recent restoration, this additional floor has been removed. The Wolff family occupied the third floor where Phillip Wolff, grandson, and most recent owner, was born. Phil Wolf has many stories about those years, including the time afire started in the basement. The independent German, Alban Wolf, didn’t call the Covington Fire Department. Instead, he ran across the street to the American Legion Hal where a dance was in progress. The men came to the rescue and put the fire out.

Many of the Wolff family worked at the printing company, including Aunt Tilley who worked until she was quite elderly. Always dressed in black, Tilley ran the place with an iron fist. She never married, though one room in the building was filed with her dowry of silver, linen, and accessories. Her dowry was still intact when she died at age 99.

Mr. Wolff found many interesting things in his grandfather’s desk after his death. Detailed blueprints revealed a secret dream the grandfather had to expand the printing company and build a book publishing company in the third of the block he owned. The Depression and the dream were shoved into the back of the drawer. No one ever knew, not even Aunt Tilley.

Also found were copies of rent receipts from the apartments for $18 a month. A ledger filed with records of local Covington citizens revealed that Mr. Wolf’s grandfather was a “backroom banker.”

A murder also occurred in the building. One of the tenants, Phil Wolff’s babysitter, Beulah, shot her Iover four or five times when she found him in her bed another woman. The judge recommended that she plead “not guilty.” She said she couldn’t do that because shot the man four or five times. She was given a light sentence under the “Heat of Passion Law.” (It is rumored that a ghost resides there still.

1997 – Jack Quinn’s Irish ale house & pub.

In 1997, Jack Welles and Aidan Bowles bought the building for renovation and with careful attention to preserving its historic character, turned it into a beautiful Irish pub. They have restored much of the flavor of the place. All the woodwork and most of the floors are original with the second & third floor has been restored for private events just like the old days. Although the food and ale were Irish, not German, the authenticity of another era had been restored.