The old metal objects were ragged and sharp, posing a hazard to people and wildlife alike, not to mention being an eyesore.  On Thursday, October 18, 2018, I decided to load the pickup truck with the first of what will certainly be several loads to haul to a recycling center.  The water heater and car axle were too heavy to move by myself, so I loaded the truck with the wheelbarrow pieces and the boxy cabinet thing, which fell apart as I carried the disintegrating pieces to the truck.

As I loaded the last of the rusty metal hunks into the truck bed, a metal nameplate fell off the boxy cabinet thing.  It was a nice enamel logo, half covered in the rusted skin of its former host.  I could read the word “Youngstown”, but not much else.  The next day I cleaned the rusted crud from the nameplate.  Youngstown Kitchens by Mullins, read the archer-adorned nameplate.  Now intrigued, I had to investigate.

The rusted carnage was hauled to American Waste, a recycling center near Kalkaska, MI.  With the truck emptied, I returned home to learn more about the nameplate and the product it was associated with.  I soon confirmed that the boxy cabinet thing was a steel kitchen cabinet made by the Mullins Manufacturing Corporation of Ohio.  Mullins turned out products from its plants in Salem, Warren and Youngstown, Ohio.  The Youngstown Kitchens brand was a line of steel kitchen cabinets sold from the early 1940s through the mid 1950s.

Mullins made a large array of kitchen cabinets, offered in several colors.  The advertisements from the period are interesting, and I learned that the archer featured on the nameplate was the Roman Goddess Diana.

I think I’ll keep the little nameplate from the woods, maybe to mount on a tool chest or workbench in the garage.  It’s a survivor and a link back to the days when kitchen cabinets were available in in aqua colored steel.