I went out to Antiquified Antiques in NE Minneapolis a few days ago on a whim just to see if I could find anything fun to bring home. As I was looking at some cute vintage books, something underneath them caught my eye. I love anything with letters or numbers on it, and what lied under all those books was covered with writing! Once I removed everything on top of this trunk I started reading the writing. "Military", "APO", "US Army", etc. Clearly this was some kind of army crate.
I was so intrigued! I kept wondering what the story was with this crate. I bought it for $32 and couldn't wait to get it home so I could start googling all the writing on the crate in hopes of figuring out it's past.
Aside from the writing and history this crate clearly has, I also loved the worn appearance, the metal latch, solid wood, and chippy paint. Once I got home I started googling. I started with 'US Army' and 'Kaiserslautern'.
I found out a lot about Kaiserslautern, Germany. Located about 300 miles NE of Paris France, nearly 60% of the city had been bombed and destroyed during WWII. After the War, in the years from 1950 to 1955, Kaiserslautern developed into the largest US military community outside the United States. Due to the heavy military population, the entire city began to rebuild in the late 1960's. Currently, the army base still functions and is populated by 40,000 service men and women.
Now, I searched the name 'Barbara Standish' and 'Magnolia Minnesota' to see if I could find out any other information or maybe a lead about how old the crate might be. Sadly no luck, all I learned was that Magnolia, Minnesota is a very, very small town in the Southwest corner of Minnesota near the Iowa border.
So, maybe the crate is from the 1950's? The materials and costruction certainly don't appear to be from any later than that. Nevertheless, it was fun learning about the place it came from! If anyone else out there has any other information about this trunk or the Army Base in Kaiserslautern please let us know!
One fun little project we might do with this trunk is something that junkin' genius Amber sent us from Design Mom. They added legs to their 'Ammo Crate' so it was a bit more useful. We are tryingto figure out where/ how we want to use the trunk, but like the idea of making it taller.
It's almost Friday, I can't wait for this weekend... the main event, Alex + Antique Window vs. Gravity! Oooo I can't wait to see what it looks like! Hope everyone has a great weekend!
* Update! I got a comment from a gal living in Kaiserslautern with her husband who is in the Air Force, how crazy to be so connected in the blog world?!?! Thanks for sharing with me Ali!*