I’m not gonna lie. This year hasn’t seemed much like the Christmas season to me at all. And that’s just fine with me.
Two days after Thanksgiving we went on the cruise to the Panama Canal. Surprisingly, when we started there was no Christmas on the ship at all. No decorations, no music, nothing at all to indicate we were in that home stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I almost forgot it was near December.
As the cruise wore on, overnight a tree or some garland would pop up in some of the larger public areas and restaurants, but it was subtle. I liked that approach just fine. Christmas is not my thing. But as “the season” wore on, I knew I needed to write a post for this week before Christmas. It crept closer and closer, but I couldn’t think of a single Christmasy thing that felt right to write.
Suddenly, Sunday night, I had a flash of inspiration.
I was thinking about my dad who passed on 6 years ago this week before Christmas. I grew up in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, one short block from the tinsel factory. I saw it every night from my bedroom window. Hmmmm….tinsel….Christmas. There’s a good holiday connection people might be interested in!
Amazingly, even growing up a block from the tinsel factory, I didn’t know the whole story about the Manitowoc/Christmas connection. Now I know more than I ever imagined about my home town. And, boy, it is fascinating. Well, to me anyway. I’ll let you judge for yourself.
At the turn of the century (1900, not 2000), the Manitowoc-Two Rivers area in Wisconsin where I grew up, on the shores of western Lake Michigan, might have been called the silicon valley of the aluminum industry. Here’s an interesting and comprehensive overview of the history of the aluminum industry in Manitowoc County. Spoiler alert, it includes a photo of an ornate aluminum casket that surely was the envy of anyone who could afford such an elaborate final resting container.
The growth of the aluminum industry included building a three story brick building, completed in 1918, on the corner of 16th and Hamilton Streets. We moved into the house on the corner of 15th and Hamilton when I was in kindergarten in 1960. The building housed the Tinsel Manufacturing Company. It morphed over the years to the National Tinsel and Toy Manufacturing Company. Christmas ornaments were manufactured there until 1998 when they were known as Santa’s Best. Santa’s Best is still in business today in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where it prides itself on “providing beautiful pre-lit trees, lights and other decorations central to family holiday traditions.”
In 2020 the 100+ year old building in Manitowoc was sold to a real estate developer, sight unseen. When the new owners finally toured the building, they found millions of dollars of Christmas inventory stacked on pallets. They reopened the factory as the Christmas Factory Store and held a liquidation sale which included 2,000 – 3,000 Christmas trees. It’s closed permanently now since all the inventory was sold in just 3 months. Just this summer the building was put on both the State and National Registers of Historic Places.
Mirro Aluminum, maybe the most famous aluminum manufacturer of all time, was also started and headquartered in Manitowoc. In fact, I worked for Mirro in the pizza pan section for a total of about 3 weeks in my freshman year of college. I hated it. But that’s another story.
Mirro Aluminum was most famous for its cookware, but there’s a Christmas connection there as well. Mirro made Christmas cookie cutters, Christmas cookie presses, Christmas cupcake and jello molds, aluminum Christmas Tree lamps, gingerbread house molds, poinsettias to snap on the ends of aluminum Christmas tree branches, and Christmas tree cake pan sets.
Another intriguing Christmas connection to the aluminum industry in Manitowoc is the invention and prevalence of aluminum Christmas trees in the 1960s. The most famous, the Evergleam Christmas Tree, was originally manufactured and sold in 1959 by the Aluminum Specialty Company in Manitowoc.
Hundreds of thousands of Evergleam trees were made in a variety of sizes and colors, and with accessories like revolving stands and color wheels. They were wildly popular until aluminum trees were referenced negatively in a 1965 television special, a Charlie Brown Christmas. Then, in the late 1960s plastic trees began being manufactured by Aluminum Specialty Company and in 1971-1972 the aluminum tree production was discontinued due to declining sales.
In the 1990s, there was a renewed surge of interest in the aluminum trees and more than one book was researched and written about the Evergleam craze.
Here’s a link to The Evergleam Book. And here’s a link to a full history of all things Evergleam. Season’s Gleamings: The Art of the Aluminum Christmas Tree is currently out of print. And if videos are more your thing, here’s a great 20 minute video that tells the whole aluminum Christmas tree story. Enjoy!
Several years ago, when I was visiting mom around the holidays, she and I went to the Museum in Manitowoc where every year they have an incredible exhibit of these “modern, sleek, space-age design” trees. It’s almost laughable now, since, honestly, they are pretty ugly. But for 10 years or so when I was a kid, that “clean, modern look” was quite the rage. Now they are quite the collectible rage.
The trees are serious collectibles these days, in high demand, and shockingly expensive, if you can find them. Last night my sister-in-law, Kristine, told me she has one that was given to her about 10 years ago. She had no idea of the interest and following these trees have in 2023. Nor of the potential value of a box of silver prickly aluminum she has in her attic.
The history of Manitowoc is still so dominated by the aluminum industry that even today there is a seasonal display of these vintage trees on Manitowoc’s main street. Evergleams on Eighth has its own website and organization whose stated purpose it is to “foster an appreciation for the rich manufacturing history of Manitowoc, Wisconsin and the various phases of aluminum goods production that took place there throughout the latter half of the 20th century.”
The downtown location of the Mirro Aluminum plant where I worked was demolished in 2017 and today the block where the building sat is a fenced off eyesore. In 2022 it was sold to a developer for $1 and there was some talk of plans to build affordable housing on the site. Nothing has been done about that to date because, apparently, the $1 price tag included some conditions regarding contamination connected to the site. The aluminum industry in Manitowoc may have left more of a lasting legacy than anyone ever imagined.
If the Christmas season prompts me to learn more about stuff I should have known years ago, I’m all in. Someday there may be a trivia question about where the first Evergleam christmas tree was manufactured. I’ll know the answer, and now, so will you!
Merry Christmas!
P.S. Randy and I are headed to Missouri again tomorrow to spend Christmas and New Years with Lynn and Dave and many of our old friends. Please join us in praying for safe travel and good weather for all those who will be venturing out to be with friends and family during the next several weeks.
Leave a Reply