Livin' It Up Until We Hit The Ground

I've got some more foreign signs to work through in the backlog, not a few of which are from trucking and storage, but let's break things up a little and try to stay at home just a bit, so let's head out to Longfellow again.  As I promised, we've got more grain elevators.

The elevator's probably a bit older, but the sign looks to me like it's not from all that far back.  Harvest States should be a familiar brand to those from the Upper Midwest.  Honestly, I'm not entirely sure why, but I've heard of them, which means you should have too.

That said, it doesn't seem to say "Cenex Harvest States," so maybe that means the sign dates from before the merger of those two cooperatives in 1998.  The combined entity calls itself CHS, Inc. now, but it's still headquartered here in Minnesota, in Inver Grove Heights.  I'm not going to go too much into the company's complicated history of combinations and divestitures, but I was surprised to see among the many different transactions that Harvest States owned the Holsum brand.

It's hard to tell, at least to the untrained eye, whether this sort of facility is still in use, but it didn't look like it to me, except maybe as a cell phone tower (I think that's what those vertical rectangular things are).

Look Elsewhere For The Stems And Resin

It's been a busy weekend here at the blog.  We've had to contend with a whole 3 page views in the last couple of days.  Apparently y'all are just way too excited about unknown printing companies.  Well, even though that didn't fire you up, this surely will.

We're off in the southeastern part of the city, right next to the railroad tracks along Hiawatha Ave. that parallel the river.  It's the land of light rail, grain elevators and related businesses, no small number of which seem to be crumbling and in decline.

In that vein, here we have the Minneapolis Seed Company.  It may not be fully legible in the photo, but it was pretty clear when I drove by again today, so take my word for it.  Despite being a bit generically named, the Historical Society has this interesting postcard from 1910.  It seems this is part of the Cargill empire (pdf) and the former Terminal Elevator Company, formed in 1904 and renamed in 1912 amid restructuring brought about by fiscal crisis at the company.

In November of 1920, officials of the company reported that country dealers were holding on to their seed rather than selling it in hope of higher prices.  Later that year, American Seedsman published some interesting images of the interior of the company.

Here's shot of the elevator, just to the left up the tracks in the photo above.  Stick around and I'll show you something quite similar from a bit farther to the southwest.

Can't Get Enough

Let this sign be your guide.  Should you be trying to go shopping at Freeman's, that is, this is where you should be parking.  You may face a small challenge, however, in that Freeman's no longer exists.  Instead, this sign is on the back of what's referred to as the Coliseum Building.

The store opened in 1917 and survived until 1975.  Which means I'm not nearly old enough (okay, maybe nearly, but still) to remember when it actually existed.  It's near the intersection of E. Lake St. and Minnehaha Ave., which apparently used to both be an intersection of streetcar lines and a home to no fewer than five department stores.  Here's what the place looked like in around 1920.

In my head, I remember dropping my brother off for a Bad Company concert in this building shortly after getting my drivers' license.  If there's any validity to that memory, it was probably due to the ball room.  There are ongoing plans for redevelopment and refurbishment of this historic building.

There is no word whether the proprietors are related to Hennepin County Attorney (and former gubernatorial candidate) Mike Freeman, or his father, former Minnesota governor and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Orville Freeman.