Jonathan and I were in Bloomington, Illinois a couple of weekends ago for my grand parents 80th birthday. One of our friends at Intelligensia (in LA) told us to check out Coffee Hound in downtown Bloomington. Apparently they compete in the national barista competitions with Intel. So between family events we snuck off to downtown Bloomington, to get some coffee(tea).
We parked on the Square and were walking down a side street looking for Coffee Hound when we stumbled upon this building (see image below). I was flabbergasted. It was like seeing a ghost of a person you have only seen in a photo. I knew in an instant that this was the old Klemm Overall Factory!
My great-great-great grandfather C.W. Klemm owned a number of businesses including the Klemm Overall Factory. It was once the main competitor with Levi Strauss. Sadly, Klemm’s continued to focus on overalls exclusively while Levi Strauss started expanding into denim pants (aka blue jeans). Klemm was eventually put out of business. (I think there is a lesson in this story…)
Anyway, I grew up my whole life thinking that this building burned down in the Great Fire of 1900. My Grandma Honey, Marilyn Christ Anderson, told me she donated a big pile of half melted together overall buttons from the fire to the McLean County Historical Society decades ago. They must have had multiple buildings.
I inherited two pictures of the building (see below).
This is a picture of the upstairs sewing room at the factory. It kinda looks like the American Apparel of the 1880′s. These days the upstairs is being used by some club that runs model railroads. I would love to visit that the next time we in town.
I eventually pulled myself away from taking pictures of the overall factory (I think Jonathan thought I was a bit over excited) and we found Coffee Hound nearby. While not quite Intelligensia, it was a great place. I love their old time store front, with high ceiling and original mosaic floors. We will definitely be back when we are in town.
You should consider posting your wonderful photos on http://www.historypin.com/. It’s a great site. Thanks for sharing the story and photos, it was very interesting.
Patty,
I enjoyed reading your comments and seeing your photos. We own the Art Gallery behind this building, Eaton Gallery 411 N. Center. When doing research on our building I found out that Klemm’s used the 411-413 buildings in the early 1900′s for storage of their jeans. I should also tell you that when Herb and I moved to town in 1971 to attend ISU I worked at Klemms Dept. Store from 1971-1973. We have been downtown supporters and movers and shakers for downtown for 40 years.
Hope we can meet you next time you come to Bloomington. Love hearing old stories about our Historic Downtown. Pamala
Dawn — Thanks for the tip. I logged onto to historpin. I haven’t uploaded anything yet but it looks interesting. I’ll try to get some photos posted sometime soon!
Pamela — Thanks for your note. I would love to be in touch! I have 8+ boxes of photos and albums I inherited from the Klemm side of my family in storage. I need to get them shipped out to me so that I can get them scanned. There are a lot of old Bloomington. I also have some interesting Klemm memorabilia, like the portrait of Klemm that hung in the store. I have a lot of photos related to the gas company (great grandpa Howard worked there). One of my other great-grandfathers was a prominent architect, Edgar Lundeen who had offices on the same block as the Klemm store. So I have a ton of family history in downtown Bloomington. I’ll try to post a lot more stuff this year! It is exciting to me to know that other people are interested in this history too.
Dear Patty,
Thank you so much for posting these pictures! Although I have seen the top two pics before, this is the first time we’ve seen the interior shot with all the women sewing. What a treat! My name is Patty Young and I own MODKID, a textile design and sewing pattern company which currently resides in this building, next to Golden Dragon. We do a lot of sewing here (mostly samples for our sewing pattern covers and trade shows) so it is so wonderful to see that this building has come full circle. Although we don’t have nearly as many sewing machines as shown in the picture, we do have a couple, and we enjoy the character of this quirky old building so much.
Stop by an visit us next time you are in town. We will give yo a tour of the building!
Best regards,
Patty