A few days after covering an iconic Chelsea business, I headed to the Chelsea Area Historical Museum — in a new location next to Thompson’s Pizzeria, another iconic Chelsea business — to photograph a display of stoves from the long-defunct Glazier Stove Company, an iconic Chelsea company of old.  (The famous Chelsea Clocktower complex was originally the Glazier facility.)

It didn’t take long for me to discover a fascinating piece of information: the company’s original name included my own surname!

Yes, the company began as the Glazier-Strong Oil Stove Company.  We current Chelsea Strongs arrived in town in the late 1960s, though, so we aren’t directly connected to the stove Strongs.

Anyway, on to the stoves:

As seen in the above photo, Glazier’s stoves featured the name Brightest and Best, along with the model number; the above stove is model 16.

The stoves belong to a local collector (shown above) who has generously allowed the museum to display them.

In addition to the current Glazier display, the museum has a number of other displays of Chelsea history; one of them is relevant to the above-linked iconic Chelsea business:

That’s Chelsea Milling Company president Howdy Holmes’ racing suit!