Mueller was a German immigrant, born on May 16, 1876. He arrived in Portland in 1904 after a brief time in Detroit and worked his entire career as a building contractor well into the 1940s before retiring to the Tillamook area. He and his wife Elvira raised their three sons and daughter in their Alameda neighborhood home at 4546 NE 21^st. Mueller died in Portland on December 27, 1971 at age 95.

Like other builders who had been busy in the mid 1920s, Mueller shifted to remodeling during the depths of the Great Depression. In 1933, Mueller acquired six tax delinquent lots on NE Crane Street. An article in The Oregonian from July 7, 1933 noted the foreclosure purchase and Mueller’s plans:

By then, Mueller and those working with him were busy elsewhere on Crane Street, in the following order: 2054 NE Crane – June 1933; 2044 NE Crane – April 1935; 2034 NE Crane – December 1935; 2014 NE Crane – February 1936; 2024 NE Crane – March 1936.

Mueller also built the following nearby homes: 2013 NE Mason (1926); 2920 NE 15^th (1936); 6036 NE 24th  (1937); 6117 NE 24th (1937); 6209 NE 24th (1937);  6230 NE 24th (1937); 4134 NE 22^nd (1937). Family resemblances among these are clear, many of them designed by local architect Ralph Earl Panhorst.