A T Fagerburg was born in Bloomington Illinois in 1866 and became a painter for the Chicago and Alton Shops. He also attended Franklin School and Bakers Business College. He must have been a very busy man, because rose from apprentice to master painter before the age of 20! His skills were so advanced that he was the only employee trusted with the application of the gold leaf and inlaid pearl work to Northwestern's owner's palatial Pullman car. He returned to Bloomington at the age of 20, however, and worked with the Belle Plumb Paint Store (run by the adopted daughter of Mr. Plumb after his death, if you remember an earlier post). After a few years he became dissatisfied and began his own paint and wall paper store on Main Street.
A Pantagraph article in 1970 related that when Fagerburg opened his paint store, there were 13 other paint stores in town, and the competition was not welcoming to this young business man. There were attempts to have wholesalers boycott Fagerburg and he had to travel to Chicago to find suppliers. This article also claimed that Fagerburg had workmen who did the original work on the David Davis Mansion and ISU's Old Main, but because he only started in business sometime after 1886, this seems to be an ungrounded claim.
At his store the paints were ground and created on site as was the custom at the time. At one time he employed 35 to 40 men as painters and wall paperhangers. He had an interest in sign painting and even invented a revolving sign and different paints and stains for furniture. His son said that the revolving sign was not a complete success, because it would sometimes spin so fast in the wind that no one could read it.
His home at 1414 North Main Street was one featured in the 1896 edition of Illustrated Bloomington. His home was a less palatial home than some further south on the street, but it was still a large and gracious home with a generous porch and interesting round bay window on the first and second floors. Note the large barn visible behind the house, where the horses that pulled the family carriage would have been housed, or where Mr. Fagerburg may have had a work space for creating paints and signs.
Mr. Fagerburg died at this house in 1953 at the age of 86, after a long and useful life in the paint business, providing finishes for the many beautiful homes built in Bloomington! The Fagerburg paint store continued in business for 84 years under the control of the Fagerburgs and was sold in 1970 by Robert Fagerburg.
Mr. Fagerburg is said to be the third man from the left in this photograph in front of his first store with his painters and wall paper hangers.