701 3rd St N
Minneapolis, MN, USA

701 3rd St N, Minneapolis, MN, USA

The Sherwin Williams Company warehouse is a two-story, rectangular, brick building designed in a simple Neo-Classical Revival Style. The entry of the three bay façade contains a Tuscan portico with paired columns and a full pediment. A sculptured globe representing the Company’s “Cover the Earth” logo is placed above the pediment. Decorative integral brick ornament is found on the pilaster columns. 114The windows were replaced in 2005. The building retains a loading dock along 7th Avenue North. The building retains its integrity. The rear of the property contains the former Great Northern spur line corridor. The corridor is a significant landscape feature for the district and it remains largely intact.[1]

This is one of the buildings on the site where "Bloody Sunday" occurred.

The 1934 strikes really stemmed from the winter of 1933-34 when socialist militants such as the Dunne brothers (V.R. (Ray), Miles and Grant) and Swedish immigrant Carl Skoglund had effectively shut down delivery of coal during the coldest part of the year. This victory lifted their status as organizers among the area’s truck drivers. By the spring of 1934, anger among the drivers over wages and working conditions had reached such a level that a powerful strike was possible.

The strike began on May 16. It was successful in that it stopped most commercial transportation in the city. Certain farmers were allowed to bring their produce into town, but delivering was directly to grocers rather than to the food wholesale outlets in the market area, which the union had shut down.

The union, Local 574 (today Teamsters Local 120) was up against the Citizens Alliance, a group of powerful and influential business leaders in Minneapolis vehemently opposed to unions. The Alliance hired goons to augment the police. These people were deputized, provided with clubs made by a local woodworking shop and during the May strike physically clashed numerous times with strikers and pickets in the streets of the Market District.

In the latter part of May, a truce was reached and a tentative agreement signed. But by mid-July, the Citizens Alliance and the trucking owners reneged on the agreement and the strike resumed. On July 20, what has become known as “Bloody Friday,” unarmed strikers were confronted by police, who opened fire with handguns and shotguns. When the confrontation ended, 67 strikers were shot and two, Henry Ness and John Belor, died of their wounds.

By this point, support for the Teamsters had grown, not only among other trade unions but by the public as well. The strikers held strong and remained unified. Victory finally came on Aug. 21.

On that date, federal mediators were notified by the Citizens Alliance of their acceptance of a settlement proposal agreeing to the union’s major demands.

First Owner: Sherwin-Williams