December History Friday: Origin of the KA Shield

By Matt Goff, Kraus-Anderson Historian/Archivist

As an archivist for Kraus-Anderson, I may be biased, but I truly think that Kraus-Anderson has a great logo. It delivers the simplicity and instant recognition asked of it, and its design gives a knowing wink to the importance of heraldry in the history of corporate logos. The origin of Kraus-Anderson’s famous shield is a bit murky. The earliest example this archivist can find is from a 1969 letterhead that survived by accident in KA’s photography collection.

Erling Jaeger, a second-generation KA employee (and father of the recently-retired KA legend Doug Jaeger), may very well have been the artist responsible for the priceless contribution. Below is a youthful image of Erling Jaeger alongside a more mature Erling pictured shaking hands with Lloyd Engelsma.

During an oral history interview, Erling recalled that he (“or it could’ve been somebody else,” he modestly adds) first drew the KA shield on a hard hat during the building of Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park. Unfortunately, the Kraus-Anderson archives are not blessed with hard hats of that vintage. Perhaps surprisingly, there are precious few images of KA job sites in progress from that era. The 1962 downtown St. Paul Dayton’s was particularly well documented with a photo album that includes construction workers in action. There does appear to be a shield or emblem on one of the hard hats, but the image is too grainy to be decisive.

Judging by the photo below of Erling from a January 1959 Star Tribune article about the new hospital, spirits were running high on the job site. It may just have been the sort of creative environment that spawns a masterpiece.