Foreign Lands: Austin With A Tarpaulin? Behave!

Sometimes in this "business," signs defy your expectations. Before I Googled (sorry, Larry Page, but I'm going to continue using it as a verb), I didn't think I'd be able to find out much about Powers Dry Goods. I figured it would be a long forgotten, single-location retailer in St. Paul that the internet never heard of.

But no. Its even got its own wikipedia page. Powers was a department store, founded under a different name, but renamed in 1881 when it was acquired by the Powers brothers of St. Paul. In 1903, The New York Times (pdf) announced the arrival (to something) of Mr. Knox and Miss Holland of the company as buyers. At it's peak it had 7 locations in the Twin Cities.

It was acquired again by Associated Dry Goods in 1920, which itself was acquired by Donaldsons. Minnesotans of sufficient age will remember when Donaldsons and Daytons were the two rival department stores, when each of the "dale" shopping centers around the metro area was anchored by both. Those days ended when the company was acquired again in 1987 and all the locations were converted to the Carson Pirie Scott brand, which didn't work out so well. After bankruptcy, Daytons ended up buying them (an interesting development from a competition perspective), but like nearly all department store tales these days, the story ends in a ultimate acquisition by Macy's. All hail the conquering May Company!

This sign is at 4th & Wacouta in Lowertown. It's previously been featured on Writing On The Wall and Flickr, while Nokohaha has an old postcard of the Minneapolis location and some additional history. The Historical Society gives us visual evidence of the sale of war bonds to ladies in Minneapolis (no word on whether the counterman went to stag parties at the Calhoun Building) and of a monstrous, man-eating, precursor to Disney's Flounder ostensibly created as a Christmas display in 1949.

Finally, yes, I'm try to set new lows in dorky post titles.

Foreign Lands: Trout Or Seat Covers

We're back in St. Paul, not far from our favorite many-signed wall, with Jax Manufacturing Co. and friends. At first, I couldn't help but think of the exciting trout "fishing" opportunities of Jax Cafe, in particular because a friend was recently ignorantly mocking Minnesota fishing by referencing trout fishing in a stocked pond, but I think this is something different.

Writing On The Wall has already been here, noting that there are actually several layers of signs here. I'd like to explore the partially-covered signs, but I can't make out enough to go down that route, so I guess I have to stick to Jax. Unfortunately, I haven't got much on them either, except that some of them made seat covers for "autos" in 1940.

No surprise, but I'm not the first to snap it at 253 E. 4th St.

Foreign Lands: One Wall; Several Signs: The Final Countdown

As our friends at Writing On The Wall have always recognized, this all is the side of the Master Framer's building. Naturally, they have their own sign. It's more than a little faded, but they have been offering custom picture and mirror frames, and restorations, since 1959. They are open during the light rail construction, which will one day allow me to ride in air conditioned (and perhaps more importantly heated) comfort across the Mississippi and over to Lowertown. Open, mind you, but not troubled to repaint their sign.

Foreign Lands: One Wall; Several Signs pt 2

We covered the more important beer aspects of this particular vertical fantasy of brick and paint in an earlier post. This time we have a product that "tastes better," which clearly must be a taste-sensing robot designed to surpass even the greatest sommelier in identifying the berry and citrus notes in fine wine. What's that you say? It's actually a Coca-Cola ad from the 1950s? And the whole "mistake a commonly understood statement for something else implausible schtick isn't actually funny?"

Okay, well, you don't have to be so mean about it.

Of course we also an ad for Anderson & Hedwall, which seems to have confounded prior blog attempts to identify it. Applying the best of both my google and legal fu, I can tell you they got sued. A workman's comp decision from 1940 says that some guy who was an "electrotyper" got a hernia, so I'm guess that means it was a print shop. Take that blogosphere!

Foreign Lands: One Wall; Several Signs

This wall, on the side of 262 E. 4th near Wacouta in St. Paul, has several ghost signs. I've decided to deal with them individually, but you can get a preview of them all over on Writing On The Wall.

Naturally, I've also decided to start with the beer. And, naturally, as we are in foreign lands, we also have a sign for foreign beer. Being St. Paul, you would think it would be for the local brew, but no, this is even worse. It's beer from Milwaukee. Can you image? Apparently that city simply has no pride.

Unfortunately I can't say for sure which Milwaukee beer it is, because someone decided to put a pair of windows directly in the name. It looks to me like it ends in a Z, so my guess it was either Blatz or Schlitz. Regardless, neither is from the land of the sky blue waters.

Foreign Lands: Better Than Punch Cards

Behold! The computing power of reel-to-reel tape! Nothing says high tech like guys in suits, horned rim glasses, and flat tops. Despite appearances, Control Data made some of the fasted computers of the 1960s. The company had its origins in WWII code-breaking for the Navy, but via some time as part of Sperry, by 1957 it had set up shop in an old warehouse here in Minneapolis. You will not be surprised that this early history of computing is well documented on the interwebs. Apparently web types like computers. Who knew?

Historical Society doesn't seem to have a shot of this location, but a scroll through the search results for Control Data is still interesting, if nothing else for images of the various buildings around the Twin Cities. This used to be big business. Big enough that they moved houses in the Marshall-Dale area to build its world distribution center.

The last bit of the company was sold off in 1999. I haven't been able to find out whether they have offices at this location, but I rather appreciate that the developers of this building, which looks to now be housing, left the better part of this sign for posterity. This way we all get to remember when Minnesota was a hot bed of computing (take that, Silicon Valley!).

Foreign Lands: Its Own Juvenile Joke

I still have a backlog of Minneapolis signs, and many neighborhoods left to explore, but some day those resources will be exhausted, and it's fun to explore other places too, so I'm going to occasionally bring you signs from foreign lands. This one is truly exotic, from strange and alien confines of downtown St. Paul. If any of you are ever brave enough to venture there yourselves, come prepared, it's truly the wild, um, east.

I remember radio ads for Butwinick's from my childhood. As you can imagine, it's a name that a tween would remember. I'm surprised I've not found more about the store's history on the internet, but Writing On The Wall says it was in operation from the '30s to the '90s. I'm guessing that its closure was just before everything started getting documented digitally on the web. Apparently a scion of the family now owns a mattress store.

From the Historical Society's photo archives we learn that Butwinick's store had a fire in 1949, which led to a big sale that drew a big crowd. And here's another shot from Flickr.

The sign's on the corner of 7th and Sibley, which looks like it's actually a few doors down from the original store.