A century’s worth of stories, safe-cracking skills and family history will be celebrated this week in St. Paul as family-run locksmith Kat-Key’s Safe & Lock Co. turns 100.

In 1924, milk cost 13 cents a quart, Kleenex was introduced to the public and, on June 18, Omer Katke launched a locksmith business that would go on to employ family members yet to be born.

Located at 249 E. Seventh St. in Lowertown St. Paul, Kat-Key’s helps its customers keep their homes safe, get back into locked vehicles, install safes — and crack them back open when needed.

From the archives: Key shop has a lock on safe cracking

Over the past 100 years, Kat-Key’s has served thousands of customers. It employed 10 people at the height of business and changed ownership from one relative to the next.

Katke, the business’ founder and namesake, was a jack-of-all-trades who made keys, worked as a licensed private investigator and sold TVs and radios, said his nephew George Gall.

Gall bought the business in 1978 and maintained its family-run identity working alongside his brother Rich Gall, sister Peggy Buhl for a time, and eventually his son Geoff Gall.

While it is a small operation, Kat-Key’s has had its brushes with greatness over the years — including supplying safes to the New England Patriots when they were in town for the Super Bowl in 2018, Geoff Gall said, adding that he walked away with a $10,000 check signed by Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

“There were also calls to come out to Prince’s place,” said Scott Remley, a longtime employee and an honorary family member. One time, Prince must have found what he was looking for because halfway to Paisley Park, the team got a call and wound up turning around, Remley said.

Exchanging of keys

About a year ago, George Gall decided to sell the business to ECSI System Integrators, a local company that specializes in security, life safety, audio, video and other low-voltage technologies.

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With ECSI at the helm, George Gall was able to retire last year while the business kept its employees, implemented new technology and got some much-needed support, Geoff Gall said.

“Any time we have a question, there is someone there to answer it, whereas before we had to figure it out ourselves,” he said.

Founded in Eagan in 1997, ECSI was interested in Kat-Key’s because of the relationships the shop has built and its reputation in the community, said Bob Whaley, service manager for ECSI.

“It feels like a small-town business in a big city,” Remley said of the locksmith business.

Tina Munson, service coordinator for ECSI who came to Kat-Key’s a year ago, said big box stores will refer customers to Kat-Key’s because of the team’s experience.

“We have people that drive here from Lakeville, Farmington, Minneapolis … They have other choices but they know it’s going to be done and done right,“ Munson said.

Pandemic wreaks havoc

Small businesses across the globe were suffering in the spring of 2020 as COVID-19 moved people off the streets, out of the office and into their homes.

Kat-Key’s was hit as hard as the rest of them, George Gall said, as he had to lay off his employees and run the business on his own.

The early days of the coronavirus pandemic were the hardest in the shop’s history, he said, adding that he feared he’d have to permanently close the family business.

Relief came to Kat-Key’s in the form of the Paycheck Protection Program. The federal loan program allowed George Gall to hire back his employees and get to work on a new challenge.

‘Saws and sledgehammers’

May of 2020 will not soon be forgotten by those who lived or worked in the Twin Cities.

The death of George Floyd at the hands of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin ignited worldwide protests and calls for police reform and accountability.

As protesters took to the streets, many businesses in St. Paul and Minneapolis sent their employees home, turned off the lights and boarded up their windows. Chaos swept through the two cities with St. Paul firefighters responding to some 50 fires in one night.

In the aftermath, as some businesses were forced to temporarily close, Kat-Key’s got an influx of customers.

While most protesters were marching peacefully in the streets, some people took advantage of the unrest to break into local businesses looking for safes.

“Looters went in with saws and sledgehammers,” said Remley, who got calls from workers at stores like Walgreens and O’Reilly’s who needed professional help to open their now-destroyed safes.

Remley said he was essentially hired to finish breaking into the safes, which was no easy task. “They knocked off the locks, dials and hinges, making it even harder for (Remley) to open,” Rich Gall said.

Never a dull moment

From left: Scott Remley, Tina Munson, Rich Gall and Geoff Gall behind the counter at Kat-Key’s. The longtime St. Paul locksmith business turns 100 on June 18. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

While the protests of 2020 were a significant moment in Kat-Key’s history, they now are just a part of the shop’s storied history.

“One time a woman brought in a safe and she couldn’t remember what was in there,” Munson said. Once they opened it up, they found she had saved the original run of $2 bills and a ring from her great-grandmother with its original paperwork.

According to the 1920s paperwork, the ring was valued at $100, which in today’s money would be over $1,500.

George Gall recalled a time when a customer needed a safe opened, so he and the team drilled it out. When they swung the door open, “it was packed with gold, top to bottom,” he said.

While they are not considered first responders, Remley did save a life once while he was on the clock. He remembered a time when he thought his coworkers were playing a joke on him, saying a cat got stuck in a safe.

“The woman was freaking out,” Remley recalled, and it happened to be the one time her passcode to the safe wasn’t working. “I drilled it open and the cat was just lying there in the safe,” he said with a laugh.

One of the most impressive discoveries came from a couple that was in the midst of a home renovation.

“They were ripping up the carpet and found a floor safe,” Remley said. Having never seen the safe before, they gave Kat-Key’s a call and Remley was on his way to unearth what he called “buried treasure.”

The safe was full of paperwork, including the deed to the house, and had about $15,000 in cash, Remley said, which went toward the renovation.

Kat-Key’s is hosting a private customer appreciation event on Tuesday, where they will be toasting to the past 100 years and hoping for 100 more.

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