By Carolyn Schneider Harstad, For the Tribune

After standing on Main Street for over 74 years, Schneider’s Sales and Repair was bulldozed to the ground recently.

In the early 1930s, Walt Schneider was employed as a semi truck driver by Jack Boote. Boote, a

Worthington entrepreneur, built hatcheries all over southern Minnesota. In the spring of 1932, Boote told Schneider and another employee named Pete to go to Albert Lea and build a new hatchery. He said, &8220;Walt, you are good at construction and Pete, you can do concrete work, so the two of you will do fine.&8221; Walt said the only construction experience he had was building a hog shed with his dad on their Wykoff farm. Pete’s concrete experience consisted of helping install a sidewalk, but the two young men confidently headed off to Albert Lea to get started. They used horses and a slip scraper to dig the basement, then asked construction and concrete men who were out of work for advice and help. Boote was right. Walt and Pete did fine.

Before Christmas, the Albert Lea branch of Boote’s Hatchery was built and ready for business.

In the spring of 1934, Boote asked Walt to take over the operation.

That summer, Walt brought his bride, Emma Frankson Schneider, to live at the Hatchery and in October, 1936, their first daughter, Carolyn, was born. In 1939, the Schneider family moved to their new home at 814 Clausen Ave. &045;&160;the home where Schneider still lives.

In time, Schneider bought the Albert Lea business from Jack Boote and eventually changed the name to Schneider’s Hatchery and Produce. Near the close of World War II, Schneider hired Viggo Jensen Construction to more than double the size of the hatchery. The incubators held 87,000 eggs, and between March 15 and July 4 as many as 6,000 chicks were hatched and sold each week.

Schneider quit hatching eggs in the early 1970s and changed the name of his business to Schneider’s Sales and Repair. Until his retirement in July 2005, he went to work daily from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., where he sold and repaired vacuum cleaners and sewing machines. Parts are now displayed on the back porch of his home where he still does repair work for former customers.

And what happens next? The hole left behind after the demolition is filled with sand. Then where Boote’s Hatchery, Schneider’s Hatchery and Produce, and Schneider’s Sales and Repair once stood, a new Subway restaurant will eventually rise &045; to signal the beginning of the next era.

(Carolyn Schneider Harstad of Lakeville is the daughter of Walt Schneider.)