“Precisionized Furniture,” 1952

The dresser has been in my family since 1952, when my mom received it as a 16th birthday present from her parents. Clare & I had it refinished 30ish years ago for our younger daughter to use at home through college. Now it has made its way 1,200 miles east to Massachusetts, where it will reside in our younger daughter's first home, so she now has it back again. This is the manufacturer's stamp inside one drawer.
» Post from 8½ years ago showing the front of the dresser
» Packed for this journey

Alas, Kroehler is no longer in business. From Encyclopedia of Chicago » “In 1902, Peter E. Kroehler bought the Naperville Lounge Co., a maker of wooden lounge chairs and upholstered furniture. Kroehler built a new factory in Naperville in 1913 after the original facility was destroyed by a tornado. Soon thereafter, he renamed the company Kroehler Manufacturing Co. This enterprise soon operated across the country and employed several hundred men and women in the Chicago area. By the middle of the 1940s, with over $20 million in annual sales, Kroehler was the second-largest furniture maker in the United States. During the 1960s, when the company employed close to 8,000 people around the country, annual revenues passed $100 million. The company struggled during the 1970s, closing its historic Naperville factory in 1978 and ending its operations in the area. In 1981 Kroehler was acquired by the ATR Group of Northbrook, which put the company up for sale. By the early 2000s, furniture was still manufactured under the Kroehler name by two unrelated companies, one in North Carolina and the other in Ontario, Canada.

“This entry is part of the Encyclopedia's Dictionary of Leading Chicago Businesses (1820-2000) that was prepared by Mark R. Wilson, with additional contributions from Stephen R. Porter and Janice L. Reiff.”

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19th June 2020 19th Jun 20