 By 1908 the painter had firmly established himself as one of St. Louis' foremost artists, having won a competition at the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch", become a member of the St. Louis Artists' Guild, the Society of Western Artists, and the Salmagundi Club, and held a one-man exhibition of fifty Western paintings at the Noonan-Kocian Gallery.In 1914, a year after his wife died of diabetes, the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company release a promotional booklet titled "Epoch Marking Events of American History" that was composed of billboard illustrations that Berninghaus had previously completed for the company.The book included 10 paintings by the artist featuring historical events important to the American West, including Hernando de Soto's founding the Mississippi River, Jacques Marquette's descending the same river, Pierre Laclède's founding of St. Louis, a scene from the Lewis and Clark Expedition, John C. Frémont, a pioneer wagon train on the Salt Lake Trail, and a Union Pacific train.