A small steel building manufacturer in Topeka is helping museums preserve artifacts, gems, blueprints, maps and garments, including Buffalo Bill Cody's cape.

Celebrating 100 years in business this year, Steel Fixture Manufacturing Co. makes steel cabinets and storage cases for museums, libraries, courthouses and universities, reports The Topeka Capital-Journal.

Buffalo Bill Cody's cape is stored in one of the steel building company's cabinets at the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyo.

Steel Fixture Manufacturing has sold cabinets to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and the Kansas History Museum in Topeka.

Scientists use the metal building plant's cabinets to store fossils, seashells, geological collections, bugs and plants.

"We're glad people like to keep this stuff," said David "Duff" Tuell, vice president of design and part-owner of the company.

The general steel building company has about 20 employees who work in a building on land that was formerly owned by Cyrus K. Holliday, a co-founder of Topeka and the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railway.

The history of Steel Fixture is tied to the founding of Capital Iron Works, across the street at 701 S.E. Adams, which received its charter in 1879 after it had been in operation for several years.