Shops

AKRON. Dagtto Bros, South Main. "The store will be fitted up in modern style... Electric cash carriers will be provided." Akron Daily Democrat, 30 Jul. 1900, p.3

AKRON. M. O'Neil. Lamson pneumatic tube system. Lamson brochure, 1952

AKRON. Silverberg Bros. (general store), first floor of Akron Opera House. "According to Akron Historical Society .. who researched Akron Register-Tribune archives, in August 1939, cash money clips were installed at the Silverberg Bros. Co. general store." Akron Hometowner website. The shop was sold to K & K Co. in October 1944 and closed around June 1968.

ASHLAND. Home Company, Myers Building, corner of Main and Center Streets. Opened 17 May 1910, occupying three floors. "The store also enjoyed the modern convenience of .. a cable cash-carrying system that transported money to the cashier's office that overlooked the main floor." Christine H. Box. Ashland. (Arcadia, 2011), p. 29. With photograph showing the carrier.

ASHTABULA. Carlisle-Allen (dept store), Progress Place. "The cash system was a Lamson pneumatic tube system with the tubes concealed in the false ceiling between the floors." E.Schaeffer: Ashtabula people and places (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2005), p.73

BISMARK. Choctaw Lumber Co., Commissary store. Lamson Air-Line system serving all departments. Lamson brochure

BUCYRUS. Bauomels (women's clothing). "I remember seeing this [a cable system] in Baumel's Department Store in Bucyrus, Ohio in the early-mid 1970's." JenOP in posting to Youtube, March 2021.
• In operation in 1978 when CBS News did a piece about it. Randy Hertzer

CANTON. A downtown dept. store. Pneumatic tube system. See reminiscences.

CANTON. Houghton & Simonds (Daylight Store). Folwell Block, North Market Street. "A Lamson cable Cash Carrier System of twenty-two stations will operate from the three floors to a central cashiers' desk on the main floor. This system insures quick, prompt service, operates by motor and avoids delay." Stark County Democrat, 28 Sep. 1900, p. 8

CANTON. Stark Dry Goods.  "I remember them from Stark Dry Goods, in Canton, OH, when I was a kid." Randy Colby in posting to Historic Photographs on Facebook

CANTON. W.R. Zollinger, Market and Fifth Streets. "The palatial new store of W.R. Zollinger & Co. .. in the Fowell block .. was thrown open to the public at 7 o'clock Thursday night... One of the features of the store is the Lamson cable carrier with which the store is equipped. Operating from a central desk in the rear of the first floor for the basement, first and second, twenty-two stations in all." Stark County Democrat, 2 Oct. 1900, p.5
• "We are using a complete system of Lamson cable carriers in our store to enable the salespeople to spend the greatest possible time with customer showing and selling goods." Dry Goods Review, Sep. 1921, p. 119 (with photograph)

CINCINNATI. John Shillito. "Among the heaviest users [of Lamson carriers]." Lowell Courier, ? Oct. 1883
• "We had them at a store called Shillito's in Downtown Cincinnati. . . they were also the first store here to have 'charge cards' . I still have my mother's that was issued in 1958. The Store is long gone but the card is still in perfect shape !" 'Just Joyce' in posting to Yahoo UK Answers

CIRCLEVILLE. J.C.Penney. Cash carrier. Janet Lockhart in posting to Facebook.

CLEVELAND. Halles (dept store), 1228 Euclid Ave. "For many years Halle's featured an elaborate system of vacuum tubes. Instead of processing monetary transactions on the sales floor as is standard today, cash and sales slips were sent back and forth via a pneumatic tube system to a centralized office in the building and back to the sales floor." Christopher Faircloth. Cleveland's department stores (Charleston SC: Arcadia, 2009), p.58 with photograph
"Pneumatic carriers were also helpful in connecting stores that occupied noncontiguous buildings, such as Halles's in Cleveland, where cash carriers sped from the ninth floor of the main building through a connecting tunnel under the street and up to the sixth floor of the new 1927 Huron-Prospect building in less than twenty seconds." Whitaker, p.89
• Pneumatic tube system with magnetic separator. Lamson advertisement in Chain Store Age, June 1949.
• Photograph in Ashley. Also Lamson brochure, 1952

CLEVELAND. Higbee. "1,000,000 sq. ft. - served by Lamson pneumatic tubes. Year of successful experience with centralized sales handling through Lamson Pneumatic Tubes have convinced the Higbee Company, Cleveland, of the soundness of the Lamson principle... Hence, in its new store, one of the Cleveland Union Terminals group of buildings, the Higbee Company will again use Lamson Tubes for all types of transactions - cash, charge, specials - and for messages. The Bulletin (National Retail Dry Goods Association), Mar. 1933, p. 201

CLEVELAND. Taylor, Killpatrick & Co. "Among the heaviest users [of Lamson carriers]." Lowell Courier, ? Oct. 1883

COLUMBUS. Lazarus, Town and High Streets. Photograph of the general office about 1900, showing what looks like about 20 pairs of vertical pneumatic tubes. David & Beverly Meyers and Elsie Meyers Walker. Look to Lazarus: the big store. (Charleston SC: History Press, 2011) p. 40

DAYTON. Kumber Co. "The Kumber Co., Dayton, displaced basket carriers." (Advertisement for National Cash Register Co.) Albury Banner and Wodonga Express, 3 Nov. 1911, p. 20

DELAWARE. Heseltines (later Uhlmans), Winter Street. Pneumatic tube system. Cashier was on first floor. Willis High School website

FINDLAY. J.S.Patterson (dept. store), 418 South Main Street. Lamson pneumatic tube system in use until 1982. Gene Davidson and photograph

HUDSON. Buss store. "Retail shopping was confined to the west side of Main Street beginning with the Buss Store at the south end (site of today's Hudson Square Building.) It was a cavernous place of three floors ... Fred's sister Gussie .. presided in a mezzanine floor as cashier. Through her thick-lensed spectacles, she surveyed the downstairs sales room... She received the cash from transactions via whizzing overhead trolley and, after carefully counting the change, despatched it to her brother by the same noisy apparatus." Grace Goulder Izant. Hudson's heritage:a chronicle of the founding and the flowering of the village of Hudson, Ohio (Kent,Oh.:Kent State Univ. Press, 1985), p.247

INDIANOLA. G.E.Johnson (formerly Barker & Johnson). "His is the largest concern of the kind in Warren County and the store is most modern in all of its appointments. It is steam heated, has a cash carrier system and its counters and showcases are attractive and up-to-date." IAGenWeb website

IRONTON. D.C.Davies, Second and Lawrence streets. "The largest mechanical carry-cash system .. where overhead wires came through the walls of the three large rooms - the dry goods department, the ready-to-wear and the millinery department." Herald Dispatch, 21 Jan 1966

IRONTON. H.J.Keiser & Sons. "The package baskets on a wire were first used in Ironton at the H.J.Keiser & Sons Dry Goods in 1902. That store was the middle room of the arcade building, with twin entrances on Second and Third Streets." Herald Dispatch, 21 Jan 1966

IRONTON. One Price Clothing House (OPCH). "Mr Brumberg has put up a new contraption .. which saves many steps for the clerks. It is a cash and carry wire apparatus in the store that makes change for the clerks making sales without having to walk to the office. By springing a lever, a little metal box suspended from wheels shoots on a wire with money to the office where the bookkeeper makes correct change and shoots back the money. Customers in the busy stores see the little containers buzzing overhead like birds. Our town is getting more like New York every day." Lawrence Register, 1 Sep. 1887

LAKE MILLS. Gene's Place, 101 N. Mill. "Built in 1891; originally a grocery; utilized the metropolitan cash system by installing cash carriers that traveled to the balcony on a wire to the cashier's office." History of Downtown Lake Mills

LANCASTER. Hickles (dept. store). "Hickle's .. situated on the side of Main Street, and slightly more than halfway between Broad and Columbus Streets .. opened in 1900, presented a more old-fashioned look than Wiseman's... Little change boxes clattered and banged their way from the sales clerks to the central cashier upstairs - and back again - pulled along by a continuously moving cord inside a narrow, caged causeway. David R. Contosta. Lancaster, Ohio, 1800-2000: frontier town to Edge City. Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press, 1999, p.215. (Original source: Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, sesquicentennial ed. 3 June 1950, p. A-30)

LANCASTER. Wisemans. "Wiseman's was diagonally across Main Street from Hickle's, on the north side of the commercial thoroughfare... In 1946 Wiseman began an extensive remodeling of the store... Its nearly silent pneumatic tubes swished customers' money from sales counters to the cashier's booth on the mezzanine level. Wiseman's was thought to have a higher quality of merchandise than Hickle's. David R. Contosta. Lancaster, Ohio, 1800-2000: frontier town to Edge City. Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press, 1999, p.215

MANSFIELD. Kobacker (dept. store), 32 N. Main Street. Cash carrier system. Gene Davidson

MANSFIELD. Lantels? "The same performances .. have occurred several times in the Boston store and also at Lentels[?] where there are cash package carriers." Mansfield News, 12 Dec. 1903, p.5

MANSFIELD. J.C.Penney, 18 Park Avenue West. Lamson Preferred Wire line System throughout the entire store. Central receiving station was upstairs. In use to ca. 1959. Gene Davidson

MANSFIELD. H.L.Reed (dept store), 28 N. Main Street. "Like a conveyor, made of leather. The tubes or cups would clam p onto it. The belt went round the store continuously and conveyed the carriers to the cash office... When the trolley canisters would come in, they would 'back up' on the belt until the lead one was released by her to go back down into the store shopping area...Cash and charge transactions were handled. Shop was in use until 1990s but the system had gone by the 1960s." Gene Davidson

MARION. Marion Bazar. "The rear balcony is devoted to the marking department, cashier's desk, etc., the store having been provided with the new cash carrier service." Marion Star, 9 Nov. 1895, p.5

MILLERSBURGH. Mayers (dry goods merchants). "Various departments of general dry goods, carpets, cloaks, millinery, groceries .. all fitted out with cash-railways". RootsWeb website

PIQUA. Benkerts. "Our new electric cash carriers will enable us to handle big crowds and serve you promptly." Piqua Daily Call, 24 Jul. 1902, p.8

PORTSMOUTH. J.C.Penney, 315-7 Chillicote Street. "Later J.C.Penney and other department stores adopted the Lampson [sic] basket method and still later the widely used pneumatic tubes system to handle cash. Pneumatic tubes were still in use as late as 1940." Portsmouth Daily Times, 28 Mar. 1992, p.16

TOLEDO. Earl A. Hulce. "We are so well satisfied that, if we could not get another Flyer, you could not buy ours back for five times its cost. It is perfect.' (Testimonial in Baldwin advertisement, 1925)

TOLEDO. Grocery Company. "The Lamson Consolidated Store Service Company on November 15, 1911, executed a contract, in terms of a lease, under which the Store Service Company installed a cable cash carrier system in the store of the Grocery Company in Toledo, Ohio." American Annotated Cases, 1916, p.946

TOLEDO. Morehouse-Martens. Pneumatic tube system with credit authorisation station. Lamson advertisement in Credit World, vol. 10, no.2, 1921, p.2 with photograph

TOLEDO. Star Hardware Co.. Summit Street. "A mezzanine balcony occupies a position near the front of the store yo which run the cash carrier systems from all floors." Hardware Dealers' Magazine, 1 Feb. 1911. p.337

TOLEDO. Tiedkes. "I remember that [a cash carrier] in Toledo at Tiedkes Department Store." Dr W in posting to Yahoo UK Answers

WOOSTER. Ackers. Pneumatic tube system. Shop has now gone. Gene Davidson

WOOSTER. Annats. "At some point, a pneumatic tube system was put in place, similar to the one in Freedlander's Department Store. A few years ago, Everything Rubbermaid fired up the system for a kid's day, and they could send messages throughout the store through that unique system." Wayne County Historical Society Newsletter, Fall 2013, p. 7

WOOSTER. Freedlanders (dept. store), 125 West Liberty Street. Lamson pneumatic tube system in use to approx. 1960s. Store closed on 21 February 2009 after 125 years in business. Gene Davidson.
•"From Santa Claus .. to the pneumatic tube that was used to ship money around the store .. many have fond memories of the company that served as the anchor for the city's downtown over the past century." Daily Record (Wooster) 4/8/08.
• Some parts offered on eBay, March 2009.

YOUNGSTOWN. Strouss-Hirshberg, Federal Street. "Aside from handling sales transactions, the pneumatic tube system in Strouss-Hirshberg's is designed to carry messages from department to department." Also had Lamson belt conveyors. Youngstown Daily Vindicator, 1 Nov. 1926, p.10 (announcing opening of new building)

Museums

AKRON. Area Museum. "A cash money clip" donated by Lyle Ostermyer. Possibly from Silverberg Bros. general store. (See locations above). Photograph shows a wire-line car with no maker's name - possibly Air-Line. Akron Hometowner website