Country
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Friday, September 4, 2020
Volume 8, Edition 11
Focusing on Today’s Rural Environment
PHOTO BY ANDREA BORGERDING
Brent Engle stands in front of the building housing his fabrication business, Engle Industrial. The building was formerly a Vikings training facility in Mankato before being moved to Sauk Centre in 2000.
A large piece of
Purple Pride history
Engle Industrial building is former Vikings practice facility BY ANDREA BORGERDING | STAFF WRITER
SAUK CENTRE – Tucked away on a side road just outside city limits, across from the former city dump and on property of a former junkyard stands a building with such size and magnitude that it commands awe and respect. What makes the building special is not PHOTO BY ANDREA BORGERDING only its size and overbuilt The Engle fabrication building stands 33 feet to the peak. stature, but also its former As a football training facility, it was completely open from operation. one end to another. Walls were added to section off the From 1965 until the shop for specialty areas. late 1990s, the building,
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which now houses Engle Industrial of Sauk Centre, was a Vikings football summer practice facility in Mankato. “We were told the Vikings practiced in here during summer training camp,” Brent Engle said. “The scale of how massive this building is – you can’t even really see it until you get up close.” Engle is owner and operator of Engle Industrial. The business operates out of the 100- by
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250-foot steel structure, manufacturing and repairing tanker trailers and sewer and milk trucks. “We work on anything on trucks right now, from running gear to air bags,” Engle said. “We build everything from scratch.” Given the wide array of what Engle Industrial does on a daily basis, the large building suits the business’s needs in terms of space and utilization. The journey of how the building came to Sauk Centre from Mankato started in the late 1990s when Borchart Steel Inc. disassembled the build-
ing from the grounds of Mankato State University. The building sat in pieces for several years in the steel company’s salvage yard located in New Germany. In 2002, former owner of Engle Fabrication and Brent’s uncle, Mick Engle, was looking for a building to expand his steel fabrication business. Mick looked to his iron supplier for suggestions on where to find a steel building to fit his needs. “Jim Borchart (the owner) told Mick that he
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