1912 E.J. KEMPF BILLPOSTER & DISTRIBUTOR LETTER SHEBOYGAN WISCONSIN FRAMED

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1912 E.J. KEMPF BILLPOSTER & DISTRIBUTOR LETTER  SHEBOYGAN WISCONSIN  MATTED AND FRAMED.  E.J. Kempf was the person who origonally started the billboard company in Sheboygan and Sheboygan County Wisconsin in the late 1800s.  This was the days before billboard structure and faces like we have today.  In these years, the bill posters were pasted on the side of barns, building or anywhere else that had visibility to passers by.  With the invention of the automobile and roads and highways, the outdoor advertising industry was born.  E.J. Kempf little business was transformed into a 20th century media.  As the cars became more plentiful, E.J. Kempf's business prospered and grew.  E.J. Kempf ultimately sold his business to his grand daughter and her husband sometime after World War II.  George and Helen Klasen ran and continued to expand the business as the post war economy boomed.  In 1978 the Klasen's sold their business to Richard Flynn of Sioux Falls, South Dakota who owned and operated his own billboard company in South Dakota.  I was working for Mr. Flynn and moved to Sheboygan to run the company when he bought it in April 1978.  The name of the company was changed to Flynn Outdoor Advertising.  In 1985, Mr. Flynn sold me the billboard company and I renamed it to Cramer Outdoor Advertising.  I was the 4th owner of the business.  In 1998, I sold the business again to Delite Advertising of Minneapolis.  The company is now owned by Lamar Advertising, a public company.  I bought this letter because it represented to me the roots of the company I worked at for over 20 years.