Gather ‘round now while we tell some tales of times past. April 2025 is our 10th birthday month, so we’re going to reminisce with a chronology of grainy photos and stories that are at least 90% true. 🎉
10th Bday Month Tale #5: Did you know the Community Workshop opened in 2018, almost five years after the Tool Library?
Almost five years after the Tool Library opened, it was time to take the leap and get ourselves a front door. We expanded and took over the gallery space up front. We shuffled some things around, bought a bunch of very heavy workshop tools from a weird guy on Craigslist, and started to let people use them for whatever they wanted. It was the beginning of Open Shop, and it was weird lol. Things were much improved once we got our super handy and super helpful Shop Monitors. We also started trying out some of our first classes, like Cutting Boards and Hexagon Shelves w/ Sineah.
10th Bday Month Tale #6: Did you know we opened a drive-thru so people could still borrow tools during the pandemic?
Well, not quite a drive-thru. It was more like some plastic folding tables in front of the door that we called a drive-thru. We’d stack tools on it for people to pick up, and when they dropped them off, we’d spray them down with a lawn pump sprayer full of sanitizer from the city. In the winter the tools would freeze to the tables. In hindsight, we may have over-indulged in sign-making as a coping mechanism, giving the DTL drive-thru its distinct “the end is near” appearance.
Want to ensure this “cool concept” stays alive another 10 years?
