Building boasts an interesting history

Published 12:00 am Monday, March 26, 2007

By Ed Shannon, staff writer

During the past nine decades, one Albert Lea building has been used for several business ventures. These commercial activities include an auto dealership, a genuine &8220;filling station,&8221; a tool firm and now financial services.

This large building is located at the corner of East Clark Street and North Newton Avenue. It was built in the spring and summer of 1917 by C.M. Tapager, a local contractor, at a cost of about $30,000.

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The building was originally constructed for use by H.W. Sieglaff, listed as the agent for the Ford line of vehicles in Albert Lea and a part of Freeborn County. On the Clark Street side, the building has two stories. However, its location on a slope leading down to Fountain Lake results in a third floor with an entrance on the Newton Avenue side. There&8217;s also a sub-basement once used for a heating plant and coal storage.

An undated 1917 article in the Tribune from the files of the late Bidney Bergie stated, &8220;The exposed street sides of the building will be of pressed brick to correspond with the Home Investment building.&8221;

The six-story Home Investment building, just a block to the south, is now known as the Lea Center. However, a recent remodeling project on that structure resulted in a brick exterior in a darker color which no longer matches the Clark Street building.

Incidentally, the brickwork on the east and

north sides of the building originally built for use as a garage by a Ford dealer is tan in color.

In the early 1920s this building and the auto dealership was purchased by two brothers who grew up in the Hartland area. One was Arthur Gustav Sorlie, who was then living in Grand Forks, N.D. (He was a very successful businessman who became the 14th governor of North Dakota in 1924 and died at the governor&8217;s mansion in Bismarck on Aug. 28, 1928.) The other brother was William Julius Sorlie, who actually ran the local business ventures. (He served on the city council, was Albert Lea&8217;s mayor from 1929 to 1933, and died in May 1960.)

The name the Sorlies selected for their Ford dealership was Jefferson Motor Co. Using the name of the nation&8217;s third president was based on the designation then given to the north-south highway through the city. (It was later replaced with U.S. Highway 65 and now in part Interstate 35.)

Another use for this name was Jefferson Oil Co. A curbside gasoline pump which gave real meaning to the term &8220;filling station&8221; was located on Clark Street. And by 1928 a service station with access on both sides of the gas pumps was open at 726 W. Fountain St. near the Vine Avenue corner, (This place was known for many years as Mitch&8217;s 66 and is now the office for Family Treasures.)

By the mid-1930s the Jefferson Motor Co. and Jefferson Oil Co. had ceased operations. City directories show the Locke Motor Co. was at the Clark Street location in 1938. The Sturr Motor Co. had replaced the Locke firm in 1941 and by 1945 the building was vacant.

This building changed from being called a garage about 1947 when it became the headquarters and warehouse for a tool firm.

The person who started the Lesota Tool Co. was Lisle F. Aitchison. He had owned lumberyards in Albert Lea and Hayward, the Albert Lea Ice and Fuel Co., and a manufacturing company specializing in tools. In time, the Lesota firm had 70 salesmen around the nation selling farm tools and light equipment directly to farmers and ranchers.

After Aitchison&8217;s death in 1985, his son-in-law, Charles McKey, managed the firm until his death in 1973. And by the mid-1980s this firm was known as the Northern Tool Co.

Listings in the city directories show this building was again vacant from 1988 to 1990.

In 1990 the building was purchased by Al Arends and by December 1991 his firm, Arends Associates, had started operations at the Clark Street location. Also establishing offices in the building were two Albert Lea insurance agents, Vern Haase and Leo Osbeck, who were tenants until 2000. The Arends firm changed its corporate name to Alliance Benefit Group (ABG) in 1994.

Arends said remodeling of the building&8217;s interior and exterior started with the first floor based on the Clark Street side, to the second floor in 2001, then to the basement floor based on the Newton Avenue entrance. He added that the 90-year-old building also now has an elevator.