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MINNEAPOLIS — They were just boys when they vanished.

It was Saturday, Nov. 10, 1951, about 1:30 p.m. Three of the four Klein brothers — and — told their mother they were on their way from their North Minneapolis home to play in Fairview Park, just a few blocks away.

Hours passed. Their older brother, nine-year-old Gordon, went to retrieve them from the park at dinner time, and couldn't find them. He alerted his parents — Kenneth and Betty Klein — and the hunt was on.

For all they knew at the time, the youngsters had just left to play somewhere else, maybe down along the nearby Mississippi River, whose banks were coated with thin ice.

But the family would never again see the three boys. The mystery of the disappearance of the three Klein brothers would spark a relentless search, cause decades of false hopes and despair, and gain renewed attention that would place them on as the state's oldest listed missing persons case.

It quickly became obvious the boys weren't just playing somewhere else.

The Klein family was soon joined by Boy Scouts, policemen, search dogs, civil defense patrolmen and others, as they combed the surrounding area, including empty lots, garages and vacant buildings, and went door to door asking about the children.

"Squads plodded through warehouses of the river industrial district. Hollow echoes answered their shouts," reported the Austin Daily Herald on Nov. 13, 1951. "Oily machinery instead of little boys' eyes reflected the flashlight beams."

Two sound trucks drove through the North Minneapolis neighborhoods, broadcasting All three had been wearing blue jeans. Kenneth Jr. had on a red jacket and stocking cap. David had a brown coat and red and gray cap. Daniel had been wearing a red snowsuit and a brown plaid cap.

Police insisted they had no reason to suspect foul play. But it wasn't ruled out, either.

A Minneapolis Star newspaper photographer snapped an indelible photo of Kenneth and Betty Klein and their boy Gordon, standing next to Daniel's empty high chair as Kenneth Sr. takes a phone call about the search.

Courtesy / Minneapolis Star via Newspapers.com

When two of the boys' caps were fished from the nearby icy Mississippi River, it was was who feared the boys had fallen in and drowned, but they came up empty-handed. Police followed up on reports of sightings, but those also didn't pan out, and the search widened even as hope dimmed.

By the middle of the following week, the hunt had been all but called off.

"It just doesn't seem reasonable those youngsters could disappear in the midst of thousands of people," said Minneapolis Police Chief Tom Jones in the Daily Herald article. "It isn't in the books, either, that all three of them would tumble into the river together. But that's what it looks like now."

While police closed the case as a suspected drowning, the Klein family didn't give up. They posted a $500 reward in the newspaper for any information leading to the recovery of the boys as well as regular "information wanted" classified listings.

With nowhere else to turn for answers, they sought help anywhere they could find it, and chased down every tip. They even in Virginia named

"We'll try anything if it will help us find them," in the Dec. 12, 1952 edition of the Duluth News Tribune.

Decades later, Minneapolis author Jack El-Hai in the newspaper classifieds sections in November 1997 and contacted them.

His resulting research and interviews led to a 1998 Minnesota Monthly article titled "the Lost Brothers" and eventually his 2019 book about the case, and well as a companion TPT podcast, that is also

Courtesy / Minneapolis Star Tribune via Newspapers.com

El-Hai chronicled both the family's efforts to keep hope alive, and including from Wright County Sheriff's Deputy Jessica Miller and Minneapolis Park Police Sgt. Jim Schultz. Both El-Hai and the investigators believe the boys were likely kidnapped.

Several theories rise to the top, :

• Playground worker: A Fairview Park playground worker, now deceased, was investigated for the murder of three boys in Chicago.
• 'Creepy' man: A woman who rented rooms near the Klein family's home recalled a "creepy" man in his 50s playing basketball with several boys about the time the Klein boys disappeared.
• Truck driver: Not long after the boys vanished, a truck driver (now deceased) who lived near the Kleins reportedly replaced his pickup truck bed and his basement floor.

If they're still alive, the vanished Klein brothers would be in their 70s and 80s.

If you have any information regarding the case of the missing Klein brothers, contact the Minneapolis Police Department at 612-692-8477.