Help to save an iconic piece of Minneapolis history

We have been on an adventure this summer that I would like to share with all of you. We live in a house in South Minneapolis that was built in 1915. Up until this summer, that is all we knew. The siding on our home was original to the construction of the house and was in rough shape. We decided that it was time for an update. To our complete surprise, beneath our siding was a historic treasure. We found that the entire wall of our home was covered in an advertisement for Washburn Crosby Gold Medal Flour. I posted our find online and it made a bit of a viral splash. The next day, we were thrilled to discover that the other side of our house again had the same full wall advertisement. Gold Medal is a major historic icon in Minneapolis and a foundational company in the early Minneapolis milling industry. Gold Medal Flour continues to be a brand today under General Mills.

With this discovery, we of course immediately researched how this possibly could have ended up on our house. It turns out that our home was originally a neighborhood grocery built in 1912 and run by August Fillbach on a lot just north of our property. A fire in 1915 ended the store and at that point an interested party bought the property, built a new foundation on the adjacent lot, and moved the building to our site. It was converted into our house. The signage was able to remain and was covered in tar paper and siding for 110 years until our discovery at the end of June. The sign looks as if it was painted yesterday. It is truly one of a kind.

We immediately went to work on figuring out what we could do to preserve this history and expose it so that others in our community could see it. My goal throughout all of this is to make sure that this is preserved. With that in mind, we decided to cover the south facing sign under new siding. We knew that direct sun would destroy it and that a north facing, indirectly lit sign would have a much better chance of surviving.

The challenge here is that the boards that hold the signage are essentially the sheathing for our home. Without the tar paper and siding covering them, they are not weather tight. We had to figure out a way to weatherize our home while still preserving the history. The solution arrived at with multiple preservation experts was to carefully remove the boards. Once that is done, we will re-insulate the home and re-sheath it with modern materials. We will then provide waterproofing and furring strips to allow the tongue and groove sign boards to be re-applied to the house as a decorative rainscreen. We will then seal the entire thing with UV protectant in a two coat system. That includes a base layer of protection and a sacrificial layer that, if anything were to happen to the sign, could be scrubbed and re-applied. It will both preserve the sign for the enjoyment of the community as well as protect our home from the elements.

All of this is expensive, but it's the only way to do it properly. We have funds available to pay for a portion of this and we have partnered with General Mills, who has generously added to that fund, but we are still $21,000 short of what it will take to get it done. We are asking for help from the community at large, who has been so supportive and helpful through this process. I'm asking you to help me preserve this piece of history for everyone's enjoyment. Thank you for following along in this adventure. It has truly been a once in a lifetime event, that I'm hoping can continue for many years into the future, but we need your help.

Thank you for your interest.