Krueger Planing Mill Then and Now

315 Bridge St / S Second Ave

I wouldn’t be telling you about this building if not for Jack Zygner, son of photographer Sam Zygner. In October, Jack sent the Ford County Historical Society a large envelope full of photographs his father had taken in the early 1930s when he worked for Art Studios. Two of those photographs showed the Krueger Planing Mill but I had never heard of it. And here we are.

Herman H Krueger arrived in Dodge City in the early 1920s. He married Anna Schaaf in 1923 and established a floor surfacing business. Krueger gradually expanded to become a general woodworking contractor.

In January of 1930, Krueger announced he was building a planing mill on an empty lot he purchased on the west side of Bridge Street where Poplar Street dead-ends.

The 40 x 80′ mill opened the first part of May.

There were two different sections, a retail storefront area and a large open mill workspace.

The 1932 Sanborn shows the planing mill at 315 S Second Avenue just south of the newly constructed Dillon’s grocery store.

Herman died after an unspecified surgery on July 24, 1936 at the age of 49.

Anna closed the mill and began selling tools and other items that September.

She rented the retail space to Wittman Barber Shop. When industrial arts teacher William Alair reopened the mill in May of 1937, customers used the back door located at 400 Sunnyside Avenue. Alair planned to keep the mill open during the summer months when he wasn’t teaching.

That arrangement ended the following year and the mill was for rent in June of 1938.

By 1939, the Innis Second Hand Store occupied the former mill area.

The barber shop was purchased by E. E. Baggett by 1942 and the Innis store was replaced by Boles Implement Company.

By 1953, Tex Acre was operating his sign business in the old mill.

This aerial photo was taken on September 16, 1953. The red box is around the former planing mill and south Dillon’s. It’s very grainy but you can see the buildings clustered together.

The Tex Acre Neon Sign Service vacated the building around 1959 or 1960. Shortly after that, South Dillon’s expanded southward into the lot where the planing mill had stood.

This is a photo I took of the former Krueger Planing Mill location a while back:

I laughed when I heard the City Commission debating the pros and cons of purchasing this building. One issue is differing depths of concrete due to all of the additions over the decades. It would be interesting to see the patchwork where the planing mill once stood. Hint, hint…Call me!

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