To competitors and associates, Muriel Tower was a tough-as-nails businesswoman who refused to shrink from a challenge.

To her family and friends, Tower was a thoughtful and loving woman always ready with an encouraging word.

To most everyone else in South Florida from the mid-1940s until 2000, Tower was the name behind a paint and wall-papering business that seemed as much a part of the local landscape as palm trees and sawgrass.

“To this day, I mention Tower and someone ... says: ‘I used to buy Tower paint. I got a can in my garage’,’’ said Max Tower, grandson of the family matriarch who turned a modest repair shop into a booming business that, at its height, included a manufacturing plant in Hialeah, more than 100 employees, and 13 retail stores stretching from Miami-Dade to Martin counties.

Muriel Tower died Feb. 12 at age 97.

As president of Tower Paint Manufacturing for more than 50 years, Muriel Tower was a woman ahead of her time, said her grandson, Alexander Tower.

“She was a pioneer in a man’s world, to be a businesswoman running a company,’’ he said. “She really had what you’d call chutzpah.’’

Her strength came from her family, and from the challenges that came her way — whether running her own business in a man’s world, or being thrust into the role of caregiver to five younger siblings at the age of 14 in her native New York.

At the age of 24, and married with two children, Muriel Tower and her then-husband, Martin, moved to South Florida in 1940. The young couple had no job waiting, just an adventurous desire to find a better life.

They opened a repair shop in 1942, and about three years later they shifted to retail sales, opening a store on the bottom floor of a building on Northwest Seventh Avenue in North Miami. The family lived upstairs.

It was at that store where Muriel Tower recognized the potential for a future business manufacturing and selling paint, said Toby Tower, a daughter-in-law.

With the family business taking off, Muriel Tower bought a home in Hialeah in 1960. She divorced Martin in 1961, and bought him out of the family business a few years later.

With a new manufacturing plant in Hialeah, and retail paint stores opening across South Florida, Muriel Tower was a certifiable business success at a time when women were just beginning to seek equality in the workplace.

“She was just a go getter,’’ Toby Tower said.

Tower Paint built its brand with a staff chemist-formulated paint that resisted fading and mildew, Max Tower said.

“Their whole pitch was: ‘A quality product manufactured for South Florida,’’ he said. “They were the first to actually manufacture a product designed for this weather climate.’’

Whether she was dealing with business creditors, or the death of her eldest son, David, in 1997, Muriel Tower exhibited strength and self-determination, Alexander Tower said.

“She was a very strong person, very ‘I will make my reality’ kind of thing,’’ he said.

Muriel Tower’s reality, to be sure, included more than business and family. Tower Paint went out of business by 2000, crowded out by big box hardware stores, and at age 85 Muriel Tower could devote more time to personal pursuits.

She shared much of her life — 49 years — with Rudy Diaz, a former firefighter who died two years ago but with whom she traveled extensively, danced with frequently, and participated avidly in Eddie Rickenbacker Toastmasters Club.

A voracious reader, Muriel Tower loved the arts, particularly theater and the opera, and became a fitness buff long before the no-carb diet and 24-hour gyms — shunning the bread basket and red meat, and waking at 5:30 a.m. to ride her stationary bike or to do isometric exercises.

“She was always very into keeping herself in shape,’’ said Alexander Tower. “She’d always show off to people and say, ‘Look, can you touch the floor?’ Then she would bend over and touch the floor.’’

Despite her business successes and worldly travel, Muriel Tower remained a practical woman until the end, said Alexander Tower.

She lived in the same Hialeah house she bought in 1960 until December, when a fall and fractured femur required her to be hospitalized and admitted to a hospice.

“As far as the way she lived, she loved to travel,’’ he said. “She would spend money on her travels, but other than that she wasn’t one to have gold chains hanging off everywhere, and diamond rings, and ‘Let me go buy a Jaguar.’’’

Muriel Tower is survived by her son Bertram Tower and her sister, Joan Weinrauch. Contributions may be made in Muriel Tower’s name to Hospice By the Sea, 1531 W. Palmetto Park Rd., Boca Raton.