What did it cost to bury a loved one in 1959? This Enga-Billman ad in the Minneapolis Star promised a “finer funeral” – including a cloth-covered casket and professional embalming – for just $195. That’s less than $1,400 in today’s dollars. You can barely plant a cat in a decent pet cemetery for that price these days.

To dispel any doubts about the quality of the service, Enga-Billman invited folks to look the place over, though it’s unclear if kids were welcome or whether popcorn or balloons were part of the open house. Probably no kids, and just coffee. Johnny, get out of that casket!

Some of the type here is small – sorry about that, but it’s tiny in the original as well – so I’ll reproduce the choicest paragraph here:

Our Prices Include:

Casket, embalming of body, cosmetology and hairdressing, plastic duro-surgery when necessary, hearse for funeral, flower car, wooden cemetery box, use of chapel, use of Catholic equipment, funeral services at Enga-Billman chapel of church of your choice within a radius of 25 miles, general assistance with memorial records, flower acknowledgements, insurance forms, U.S. Government forms, services of professional staff in accordance with the highest standards of conducting funerals and skilled attendants. Concrete box, cemetery charges, clergy, music and obituary notices not included.

Owner Leonard Enga took considerable heat for touting prices in ads like this one.

At the peak of their popularity in the mid-20th century, American newspapers were packed with useful information, such as radio listings, pro wrestling results, school lunch menus — and the home addresses of crime victims. This cop short appeared inside the Minneapolis Morning Tribune:

Customer Beats
Man in Dispute
Over One Penny

A Minneapolis filling station attendant took a beating from a customer Tuesday night in a dispute over a penny.

The 27-year-old customer was jailed for questioning.

Larry L. Ludford, 19, 715 N. Upton Av., said his assailant drove into the Clark station at 301 S. Washington Av. and put $1.01 worth of gasoline into his car.

Ludford said the man offered him $1, but he demanded the penny. A passenger in the car gave it to him.

“I’ll come back and put something under your nose and take all your money,” the driver threatened.

Ludford called police and reported the incident and the car’s license number. After Ludford made his report to detectives the man returned and beat him up.

Police soon arrested the assailant, who struggled with officers.

Ludford went back to work. He was interrupted by a caller who said, “Pray.”

It’s doubtful the thug who beat up the Clark gas station attendant would have messed with Bronko Nagurski, shown here shaking hands with gubernatorial candidate Elmer L. Andersen at Nagurski’s gas station in International Falls in 1960. Check out how the pro football legend’s hand dwarfs that of the future one-term governor. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)

I’ve been trying to find out who leaked this story to the Minneapolis Star more than 30 years ago, but all the leads have dried up.

‘PEOPLE COULDN’T SEE US’

IDS glass washers urinate to street

By RANDY FURST
Minneapolis Star Staff Writer

Men who wash the windows for the IDS tower say that it’s not unusual for them to urinate over the street below.

The window washers say that they think that because the urine must fall 30 or 40 stories, it dissipates before it hits the ground.

	The IDS in 1972: Tut-tut, it looks like rain.

“We usually did it when we got to an empty floor,” said one window washer who cleaned windows for several weeks. “That way people (in the building) couldn’t see us.”

Window washers for IDS work from a cage-like car that is lowered from the top of the building.

Each crew is made up of three persons. Once or twice a day each one urinates out of the car, several men said in interviews.

The window washers are not employed by IDS but by a firm that is contracted for by IDS.

A spokesman for IDS Properties said that Sanitas Services of Minnesota does the window washing. Beginning next summer, IDS will assume the window washing job itself.

Jerry Finkelstein, president of Sanitas Services of Minnesota, said he did not know if his employees were doing it, but that it was contrary to “what the company instructed them, what the company believes in and what the company provides them.”

He said that he could not say at this time what the company provides.

“Our reputation is on the line,” said Finkelstein. He said that any men who he found had been urinating from the platform would be reprimanded and if they were not providing the Minneapolis Star with truthful information, and The Star’s story was in error, he would sue the newspaper.

“I would say it’s not impossible,” says Paul Lucas, operations manager for the IDS tower, when told about the reports.

Lucas said the men are not under his control but if he “got wind of it” he would order the situation corrected.

One window washer remembers the first time he had to urinate and was told by another man to do it over the side.

“At first I was taken aback,” the window washer said. He said that sometimes, he’d urinate on the building, and then throw some water on it to wash it away.

The window washer said it would take too much time to raise their platform back to the top of the building every time someone had to go. “The bosses would lose money,” the window washer explained.

Another window washer said that at first the crew used a bucket to urinate in, but “they took it off for some reason.”

Lucas emphasized the IDS was concerned about all aspects of safety, and had established a remarkable safety record since the time the building was constructed.