With nearly 80,000 residents and one of the largest business parks in the state, Plymouth is now the seventh-largest city in Minnesota.
As mayor from 1968 to 1977, Al Hilde Jr. helped create the blueprint the west metro suburb followed as it rapidly transitioned from largely rural farmland into a prospering suburban community.
"He saw the need for a comprehensive plan," said Jim Willis, who has been on the Plymouth City Council since the 1970s. From extending sewer and water lines to guiding land use, "everything was well planned and thought out. He personified the spirit of somebody who wanted to contribute to his community and make it a better place to live and raise a family."
Hilde died July 28 at his home in Jackson, Wyo., where he moved in the mid-1980s to enjoy the mountains and his passions for flying and hunting. He was 90.
Hilde graduated from Logan High School in LaCrosse, Wis., where his name was added to the school's Wall of Fame in 1988. He earned a degree in business administration from the University of Minnesota and spent two years in the U.S. Army stationed in Texas.
He started training to become a dental hygienist, but soon realized "that wasn't going to be what he was doing," said his son, Todd, of Austin, Texas. Instead, Hilde turned his interest to portable sanitation after learning about small toilets the Army was using in Long Beach, Calif., because it was too expensive to keep shuttling ship builders back to the dock to use the bathroom.
With the idea of bringing dignity to outdoor sanitation, Hilde founded Satellite Industries in 1958 and built and marketed his first wooden portable toilets to Minneapolis contractors.
"Nobody knew what they were," his son recalled. "We had to sell them on the value, and the value was productivity, not having your hourly workers jump in the car and go down to the gas station to go potty. And saving human dignity by not forcing people to go out in the woods."
