MANSFIELD - The former Reindl Springs building on Park Avenue East is now sporting murals with American muscle cars and iconic and historical events.
Mechanic and Army veteran Bob Blanton, the owner of B&B Auto Repair Inc., 262 Park Avenue East, recently purchased the Reindl Springs building and parking lot next door to his existing business.
The new building now displays the automotive murals on the west side of the exterior brick wall. Local artist Erica Russell is painting nine murals around the block windows on the wall.
Blanton bought the Reindl Springs building after the business closed in November 2019.
He has completely redone the inside of the historic building, including new windows.
A drive through time
His vision was that each mural would represent a different decade starting with the 1950s.
Russell started the project three weeks ago. She painted a Corvette from the '50s and, in the background, the Springmill Drive-In.
The 1960s mural showcases Ohio native/astronaut the late John Glenn and his first Earth orbit.
The '70s mural features a Trans Am and the Goodyear blimp.
Russell's mural of the 1980s is an IROC Z-28 and the Corkscrew, which in that decade was one of Cedar Points' biggest roller coaster rides in Sandusky, Ohio, she said.
"The '90s will be a Dodge Viper and the Ohio State Reformatory where `Shawshank Redemption' was filmed in the summer of 1993 in the city's historic prison-turned-museum off Ohio 545.
Russell said she is still deciding on the 2020 mural and car.
"Each mural takes about a week, depending on the weather," she said.
Russell has painted a mural in Bellville at Ohio 13 and Ohio 97, on the side of a Bellville Car Wash. It depicts the U.S. flag with an American eagle. She also teaches art classes to individuals with disabilities at Element of the Arts in downtown Mansfield and holds painting parties.
'There is so much history with the building'
Blanton said the Reindl Spring business, his new home away from home, was believed to have been the area's oldest operating business, started in Crestline in 1841 by Lorenz Reindl and moving the Mansfield in 1948.
Blanton graduated from Mansfield Senior High School and then enlisted in the U.S. Army where he served for six years. He has been in business at four locations for 30 years.
He still uses his existing business location next door to the Reindl Springs building and now has additional parking space at the new location.
"It's easier to say what we don't do. We don't rebuild transmissions and we don't do body work. We do all major and minor repairs, engine driveability, which is diagnosis, steering, suspension, brakes, air conditioning, everything," Blanton said.
Six people are employed at the business including Matthew Blanton, Bob's younger brother.
Blanton said the family who operated the Reindl Springs business were great people and his good neighbors.
"There is so much history with the building and it is a beautiful building," Blanton said.
Blanton said he has remodeled the building, taking it down to its shell.
"I'm still working on it," he said. "I've got new windows coming in for the front which are being put in.... All the electric, all new lighting, new paint ... furnaces, air conditioning, water, plumbing," he said.
Blanton said when the prior business initially started, they were blacksmiths who shod horses. There were still old blacksmithing tools tucked away.
"It was really interesting going through the building. They actually shod the horses for Richland County and the police departments when they rode horses," he said. "They progressed from that to doing springs on buggies and carriages."
He said the building had machinery left from World War II.
lwhitmir@gannett.com
419-521-7223
Twitter: @LWhitmir
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June 26, 2020 at 01:19AM
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B & B Auto Repair: Historic building gets muscle car murals and more - Mansfield News Journal
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