The Millworks Mural

The Millworks
North Smith Street
Cuba MO

As Viva Cuba’s eighth mural took life on the old Roberts-Judson Sheetmetal & Millworks Dept. building, a labor of love began for visiting artist Julie Nixon Krovicka, a talented artist who graduated from Cuba High School.

First, local artists Shelly Smith Steiger (CHS class of 1986) and Julie Balogh Brand, who also partnered in painting the Amelia Earhart mural, recreated the original signage on the 1900s building. Then they painted an interior scene of the building as it looked when long time employee Francis Nixon practiced his craftsmanship and woodworking on the various tasks that came his way for 54 years. Appropriately, Nixon is pictured in this interior scene.

St. Louis South City artist, Julie Nixon Krovicka joined Steiger and Brand to paint what was to her a very special part of the mural. Francis Nixon was her father and when Krovicka heard about the mural, she expressed an interest in helping with this part of the design. So she joined Cuba’s muralists to paint a loving picture of her dad wearing his trademark overalls with a bandana hanging out of his back pocket and a packet of Wrigley’s gum peeping out of his front pocket. Krovicka remembers visiting her dad at work during his years at the shop. “I associated my dad with the smell of Wrigley’s gum, Old Spice, and sawdust. To me, that was a great smell.” Krovicka does painting and artwork of her own, including interior murals. On weekends, she works as a sous chef with her husband who is a chef at the Mount Pleasant Winery in Augusta. She has a son Ian a successful artist in his own right as he has won many art prizes in the St. Louis area.

Krovicka said that her uncle Sherman worked at Roberts-Judson first and encouraged her dad to move to Cuba. For many years her dad worked with Clarence Weber and others making whatever was thrown their way in the way of various projects. Nixon was also a natural athlete playing softball for years and taking up golf in his 50s. Many of the area remember him as an excellent golfer.

But to Julie Nixon Krovicka he was dad, and she is proud to take part in this aspect of Viva Cuba’s 2005 mural project.

The Building

The Roberts-Judson Sheetmetal and Millworks building is an often-overlooked building. The building tucked in behind Wallace House is one block north of Washington on Smith Street. It was built in 1948 on land that was purchased from the Methodist Church. It was a department of the Roberts-Judson Lumber Company and housed the yard’s division that crafted custom doors, windows, and moldings.

A close look at the building draws attention to some unusual architectural details. The large device on the roof that was recently painted is the dust collector for the sawdust and shavings that result from the milling done to lumber while completing custom orders. The brick buttresses on the side of the building, separated by stucco, are columns that cover steel joists that support the roof.

In the mural, the front of the building is recreated to its original look and pictures an interior scene depicting hands-on craftsmanship of the workers who worked there. The recreated signage across the top of the building refers to Roberts-Judson Lumber Company. Even mural artists Steiger and Brand wondered why the plural on Robert and why the hyphen.

According to owner Bob Coffman, that story goes back to 1914 when Marion Roberts and Robert Judson, which provided the name Roberts-Judson, founded the company in Salem. They were long time friends and staunch democrats. About 1920, they opened another lumberyard at Steelville, which was managed by Mr. Robert’s son, Horace (Toad) Roberts. The Cuba Yard was opened in 1932 and was managed by Jim Fairclough until his death in 1958. Bob Coffman’s, grandfather, L.N. Coffman, who was a wholesale grocer at Salem was an investor, and he and Mr. Judson were brother-in-laws. Coffman’s middle name is Judson as is his grandson’s Andrew Judson (A.J.).

This building, tucked into a side street, provided quality products and employment to a roster of Cuba workers. Workers in the Sheetmetal shop were Leonard Thomas, George Scantlan, Jim Reiner, and Walter Wagner. Employees of the Carpenter shop were Harry Harmon, Harrison Souders, Rowe Matlock, Thadeous Matlock, Clarence Weber, Sherman Nixon, and Francis Nixon, who worked there for 54 years.

Since it is Mr. Nixon’s daughter, Julie Krovicka, who joined our local artists to complete the mural that commemorates the craftsmanship of a past era, once again, the Viva Cuba mural project unites Cuba’s history with a current twist.