How Bronner's became Frankenmuth's year-round Christmas landmark

Right at the edge of Frankenmuth sits Bronner’s CHRISTmas Wonderland. The company bills it as the world’s largest Christmas store. That is Bronner’s title for itself, not an independently certified record in the sources reviewed here. The measured footprint is more useful anyway: Bronner’s says the shopping area covers 2.2 acres, or about 1.7 football fields. The entire building complex covers 7.35 acres on 27 acres of grounds.

Wally Bronner marked 1945 as the official start of his sign-painting business. After several storefronts and expansions, the present Christmas Lane building opened on June 8, 1977. Bronner’s says members of the Bronner family still own and manage the company. It also says roughly 100,000 lights illuminate the half-mile Christmas Lane each evening. The store is open 361 days a year, though summer, fall, and holiday hours are quite different.

The Silent Night Memorial Chapel on the grounds needs one small distinction of its own. Bronner’s completed the replica in 1992. It copies the memorial chapel in Oberndorf, Austria, which stands on the site of the earlier church where “Silent Night” was first sung on Christmas Eve in 1818. The Frankenmuth chapel is open during store hours for quiet visits, but not for services or ceremonies. That mix of retail scale, family history, and a very specific Christmas tradition is what makes Bronner’s more than a large ornament shop.