Published: October 25, 2009 10:23 pm      

Price family beer business sold to Hagerstown firm

FROSTBURG — Enoch P. Price was a successful businessman after he served in World War I. He came out of the U.S. Army as a quartermaster and started a horse and buggy transfer business. By the time World War II broke out, Price had 37 dump trucks on the road from Ohio to Baltimore. Many of the trucks hauled coal in the Georges Creek and Mount Savage areas.

Price’s successful trucking enterprise — with the logo “E.P. Price - We Move the Earth” — soon took another turn.

“My granddad and my great-granddad, Henry B. Wilson, started their beer business in the basement of granddad’s home at College Avenue and Beall Street. He would load up his car and call on the businesses. That’s how he started out.

“A year and a half later, he built a warehouse. He also had a location in Cumberland before the flood and then he moved everything back to Frostburg,” said William H. “Bill” Price, the founder’s grandson who has operated the business for the past 43 years with his wife Peggy (Langan) Price and his dad, Enoch W. “Junior” Price, who died in December 2000. Bill’s grandfather died in September 1959. Bill’s mother, June E. Price, resides at the Frostburg Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.

“Grandad had the beer business, the trucking business and he used to bring semi-pro baseball players in to play for the Frostburg Merchants in the 1940s,” said the 58-year-old Price, who recently sold the business.

The family also owned and operated a thoroughbred horse racing enterprise that continued until Bill’s brother, Junie, died in December 2007. “I wasn’t into it and didn’t have time for that,” Bill said. The Price thoroughbreds raced at Pimlico, Charles Town and Wheeling, W.Va., Ohio and Mountaineer Park in northern West Virginia. There were 21 horses at the Price Farm at the end of Depot Road in Frostburg that Bill gave away following the death of his brother.

Bill Price said he wrestled for several years with the decision to sell the business. “InBev bought Anheuser-Busch last year and they want consolidation all over the country to make bigger, healthier wholesalers. Wantz Distributors out of Hagerstown bought it and Anheuser-Busch approved it and really pushed for it. It's already gone through. Wantz took over Oct. 12. It was time to make a move based on family considerations and changes in the beer industry,” he said.

The beer distributorship has always been part of Bill Price’s life. “I started sweeping the floors and helping in the warehouse. I had my own route for 17 years. Then I moved into the office and started overseeing the operation of the plant,” said the Frostburg resident.

Wantz is renting Price’s 13,000-square-foot warehouse at College Avenue and Water Street until the Hagerstown firm completes construction of its new warehouse in Washington County. Price’s 13 employees have reportedly been offered employment with Wantz Distributors.

As to future plans, Price said he has none. “I don’t have any plans right now. I have no reason to get back into any business. I just want to take it easy for a while,” he said.

Contact Jeffrey Alderton at jlalderton@times-news.com.