Maplewood History: Let’s Bring Back the Great Old Signs of Maplewood!

Hi Doug, my name is Greg Smith. I just read the article you published in November 2021 about the house at 2533 Big Bend. That house was built in approx. 1890-1894 and I believe was in the Geisler family most, if not all of that time. I was born in 1954 and lived in the house until 1957 when my Dad built a house on Rannells where many of the Geisler’s lived. “Grandma Geisler” owned a lot of the land there around the turn of the century and “gave” a house to each of the kids. Geisler is my mother’s maiden name, her father and mother, William and Agnes Geisler died, William in 1961, Agnes in 1991, my mother and father inherited it. It was sold in 2005 because it was sited by the fine officials of Maplewood for over 50 code violations and it simply would have been too expensive to bring up to code. The commercial building next door to the north, desperately needed parking and brought the code issues to the city’s finest attention which ultimately resulted in the sale. Over the 110 year history there were members of the Geisler family that lived there and if not, it was used as rental property. To the best of my knowledge, it was always a one family residence and likely was built with no indoor plumbing, the bathroom and kitchen were added later, certainly the bathroom. There was a long driveway that went from Big Bend to Martini Drive to the west. The 2 car garage was likely built in the 1940’s, it was there when I lived there. Ironically, the commercial property to the north was built much later than the house, but it was built at least a foot across the property line encroaching on 2533 Big Bend.

Lets add the old K-Mart sign to the list too.

100% support this idea to recreate old signs! Let’s get started!