My Back Pages - The Stremel Brothers

Another photo-visit to the industrial near-northside of Minneapolis circa 1975.

The Stremel Bothers made fire doors and other fabricated metal items throughout the 20th century. Their work has never gone out of fashion, their venerable 100-year-old doors are still in demand as decor as well as for their original function; to prevent the spread of fire in industrial buildings.

The Stremels also had an affiliated old-time hardware store, just down the street from this facility. When I lived in the neighborhood I made use of it many times. The clerks would actually help you with your purchase; I gleaned a lot of information from those crafty shop-keepers.

Stremel was bought out by Chandler industries in 2012 but the building still stands, still doing business after all these years:

“But now… when that world is no more… the spirits rise up from the well of oblivion. People and pictures from a vanished world are reincarnated and assume a significance which was hidden at the time.” ~ Halldór Laxness, The Fish Can Sing