Company
History
As a young man, Charles Ludwig
Carlson started his career as a coachman for a newly rich family that
lived on Minneapolis’ Park Avenue, a street that aspired to greatness.
It was the late nineteenth century and the new city’s youth was apparent
beyond Park and 22nd Street, now a core city neighborhood,
which at the time demarcated the city from the miles of farmland, lakes
and forests beyond.
Carlson was a combination of
stable groom, deliveryman, and private driver. He began thinking of ways
to start his own business, especially after the birth of his first child
in 1888. Horses and hauling were what he knew best, and as luck would
have it, in the city at the time there was a growing demand for drayage,
the transporting of goods by a low, strong horse-drawn carts without fixed
sides.
In
1890 Carlson formed the Park Avenue Transfer Company, which transported
household goods and small freight from the new Minneapolis train terminal.
He transported anything that would fit into his one-horse express wagon.
Carlson established his headquarters in a barn around the corner from
Park Avenue. From this strategic location Carlson was able to service
many of his customers who were residents of Park Avenue.
Charles Carlson’s family grew
much faster than his business. By 1903 he had seven children, with Walter,
the oldest, followed by Alvin and Bennet. That same year Carlson’s beloved
wife died. Two months later the elder Carlson himself died. The seven
Carlson children were left without support. Out of tragedy grew one of
the Midwest’s most unique family businesses, which today is headed by
fourth generation Carlson. Walter Carlson, age 15, and Alvin Carlson,
all of 11 years old, vowed they would not only keep the family intact,
but they would also run their father’s business. Thanks to the efforts
of a Minneapolis attorney and the support of an uncle and aunt, the Carlson
boys managed to do just that.
Walter, Alvin, and later Bennet,
took their father’s Park Avenue Transfer Company and began transforming
it into the organization it has become today. They quickly expanded into
general freight hauling and later made their services available to the
excavating business. That move marked the first step in the evolution
of Park Construction Company, which today moves a lot of earth as one
of the area’s premier heavy industrial general construction firms.
In the 1930s the brothers invested
in earth-moving equipment after several years’ experience in road-grading
projects. Soon the Carlsons abandoned hauling altogether and changed the
firm’s name to the Park Construction Company (even though they had long
since moved their operations away from their old Park Avenue neighborhood).
Contracts for the various Federal Works Projects Administration projects
proved to be lifesavers during the years of the Great Depression. In the
1940s Park worked on a new innovation called drive-in theaters. During
the 1950s the company gradually evolved from being a subcontractor to
prime or general contractor status.
By the 1960s Park
was ready to tackle large construction and grading projects, including
water-treatment plants, big road-paving projects, golf courses, power
plants and dams and excavations of all types.
