Locations - United States (Western)

States of: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

BERKELEY, Ca. Hinks. "Your change came swooping down a wire track from the cashier's office." Berkeley Daily Planet, 1 Apr. 2003

BOISE, Id. Pioneer Company (formerly Pioneer Tent and Awning Company). The new establishemt in May 1910 had a cash carrier, which was still in use in 1975. A tug on the rope was needed to send the carriage to the cashier and it returned by gravity. This England, Summer 1975

COLORADO SPRINGS, Col. Hibbards department store. Pneumatic tube system. Pax Vobiscum website

DOUGLAS, Az. Levys Red Star store. "The Lamson cash basket system can be seen on overhanging wires in the Levy's Red Star Store, Douglas, Arizona, in about 1908." Caption in Hendrickson, p.50. There are two wires to each station.

EURIKA, Ca. Russ Market. "In 1853 the late Hon. Joseph Russ established the Russ Market... All of the separtments are connected with a central office by a cash railway system, thus facilitating the prompt rendering of accounts and correctness of bills." History and Business Directory of Humboldt County (Eureka: Hamm, 1890) p.195

EVANSTON, Wy. Blyth & Fargo. Wire system. See Reminiscences

FLAGSTAFF, Az. Babbit Brothers. Cash carrier installed in 1892. Coconino Sun, 10 March 1892, p.3

HAVRE, Mt. H.A.Buttrey, dept. store. "How proud they were of their Mother who sat in an open office, a floor above the customers! They loved to watch the little baskets full of money whiz up to her and watch her place the correct change in the baskets and return them." Irene Kelliher. Jennie McKenzie and family.

HOLYOKE, Co. Tinkle, Williams & Co. "have put in a system of cash carriers in their store. This is another labor saving invention which will be highly appreciated by the clerks in hot weather." State Herald (Holyoke), 19 July 1889, p.1

HOOD RIVER, Or. Paris Fair dept. store, 315 Oak Street. The Flyer has given us entire satisfaction and we do not hesitate in recommending it to anyone who wants the bese." (Testimonial in Baldwin advertisement, 1925)

HOOD RIVER, Or. Up-to-Date store."Mr Cram has introduced another metropolitan feature in his store fixtures by the addition of a cash carrier system, which an expert from San Francisco installed the first of the week. Mr Cram proposes in this way to secure the services of a competent man to take his place at the desk." The store was "one of the largest clothing and dry goods stores in the county." Hood River Glacier 30 Mar. 1905, p.3

KEMMERER, Wy. J.C.Penney. "The mother store... It was small and still had the mezzanine and vestiges of the vacuum tube system," St Petersburg Times, 24 Apr. 2001

LAVINIA, Mt. Slayton Mercantile. "Built in 1912, the store still retains its .. tiny bucket money trolleys which ferried cash and coins in bygone days." It was bought by the Ainslies in 1998 and renovated. Lavinia website

LEWISTOWN, Mt. J.C.Penny. "When he started with JC Penney in Lewistown in 1962, "we were still putting items in the pneumatic tube to be taken upstairs and be rung up." Independent Record, 24 Jan. 2005

LONG BEACH, Ca.(?) C.R.Anthonys. "We had the same pneumatic system for receipts & cash at C.R.Anthony's in Brixby Knolls in Long Beach growing up." Mike in Seattle posting to The Fedora Lounge, 20/6/06

MODESTO, Ca. Gibert & Son. "The cash carrier system in the new stores of Gibert & Son is now being put in by W.L.Owens, a representative of the Lamson Consolidated Company. The system will be used for all the departments of the new stores and is an up-to-date one." Daily Evening News (Modesto) 1 Apr. 1898, p.1

MOSCOW, Id. Davids dept store, 3rd and Main Streets. "In my youth [1950s?], I was mesmerized by the pneumatic tubes that took your money, swooshed them up to the cashier's office on the mezzanine, and swooshed your change and receipt back to the cash register." Carl Westberg posting to Vision 2020 list, 11 Aug. 2003

NORTH DENVER, Co. Penney's, Chaffee Park shopping centre, 48th and Pecos. "When you gave the clerk your money, she put it in a pneumatic tube and sent it to the lone cashier, who sat in a windowed cage above the main entrance to the store." Dixie Darr in Salon Blogs, 3 Nov 2003.

OLYMPIA, Wa. "When I first came to Olympia, WA in 1964, there was a department store that had a system with a wire basket on a pully [sic]. It was just a big wire basket about the size that you'd use for shopping in a grocery store. Everything went in the basket and then it travelled by pully across the store and up to a cashier's room for the transfer and then came back the same way." (Posting to Aberdeen-L list, 2 Dec. 03)

PALM SPRINGS, Ca. I.Magnin. Pneumatic tube system. (Store opened 1932.) Greenspun family bulletin board, 18 Feb. 2005

PASADENA, Ca. Bullocks. Lamson pneumatic tube system. (Lamson brochure, 1952)

PASCO, Wa. General Mercantile Store. "The finest and largest store in the Tri-City region... There was a small balcony constructed high in the rear corner of the store. This supported .. the bookkeeper and cashier's desk, chair and a table from which wires ran to every counter of the store. On these wires hung a small trolley bearing a leather coin container. The clerk at the counter would place the sales slip and payment in the leather container. Then by means of a rubber slingshot, he would shoot the container over the wire to the cahier on the balcony who would make the change, place it in the container that would roll by gravity back over the wire to the sales counter." (Tri-City Herald, 8 Jan 1961, p.22)

PASO ROBLES, Ca. Mercantile department store. Pneumatic tube system. Wordydave website

PAYETTE, Id. Department store on Main Street. Wire system. Cashier sat in the balcony. Papa John website

PLACERVILLE, Ca. Mierson? "Forty years ago... The Mierson[?] firm have this week installed a Lamson Rapid Cash CArrier, which is another enterprising move and will be a valuable acquisition to the business of the old reliable trading place." Mountain Democrat and Placerville Republican, 19 Apr. 1945, p.2

PLACERVILLE, Ca. Shafsky? "The Lamson Cash Carrier Basket system has been installed this week in the Shafsky building by D.Flubacher of San Francisco, an agent of the company. There are nine tracks all running to the cashier's station in the center of the store, which will be in charge of Miss Daisy Bence." Mountain Democrat, 24 Apr. 1909, p.2

RENO, Nv. Monkey Wards, National Dollar Stores, Sears Roebuck. "All had creaky floors and air tubes that blew cash all over the store to a central cashier." ca. 1960. Reno Gazette-Journal 3 Dec. 2004.

SACRAMENTO, Ca. Weinstocks, just north of Capitol Park. "A much larger department store of several stories and a mezzanine. It .. had a centralized cashier's office. The connection system .. was pneumatic. Money and sales slip would be put into small cylinders which would be placed into the send tube with a sucking snap. An even more distinctive sound would be made when it returned and dropped into a wooden box." "Haversack" in posting to The Fedora Lounge, 20/6/06

SAN FRANCISCO, Ca. Saks Fifth Avenue. Lamson pneumatic tube system. (Lamson brochure, 1952)

SAN JOSE, Ca. Herolds shoe store, First St. "The sales clerk put the money and the receipt into a round glass and metal cylinder, then he placed the cylinder in a tube that ran along the walls and the ceiling. A moment later we watched as the cylinder soared, faster than lightning, up the side of the walls and sped across the ceiling on its way to the store's upstairs cashier." Willow Glen Resident, 6 March 2002

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Ca. Sinsheimer Brothers, 849 Monterey Street. "Longterm residents of the city still remember the overhead 'Lamson' money carrier system, a cords-and-pulleys network by which the salesclerks sent cash to the office located on the upper level at the back of the store." History of San Luis website

SANTA MONICA, Ca. Hensheys (dept. store). "Santa Monica is prime shopping territory... Santa Monica used to have one venerable, old-fashioned but well-loved department store - Henshey's - the kind of store where, right to the end, your money and the handwritten order slip were sent via a vacuum tube to the cashier on another floor. Everyone hated to see it go." (Robert and Phyllis White. Hollywood & the best of Los Angeles alive! Edison NJ: Hunter, 2002, p.439)

SEATTLE, Wa. Seattle Hardware Co. Lamson pneumatic tube system. (Lamson brochure, 1952)

SEDRO-WOOLLEY, Wa. J.C.Penney's, Metcalf Street. Pneumatic tube system. Opened in 1915 and closed in 1983. Building is now Bus Jungquist Furniture. Skagit River Journal website

SIDNEY, Mt. Yellowstone Mercantile Co. "You will find an antique Lamson Air-Line cash carrier system attached to the ceiling still in full operation... First became operational in 1915". Good illustrations on website - one shows carrier with "AIR-LINE" on it. "Their system stands as the last of its kind! No other cash carrier of its like is in operation anywhere else in the world."

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Col. J.W.Hugus & Co., 912 Lincoln Avenue. Now Thiesen Mall. "One of the nation's first chain of general stores operating from 1879 until 1926... The various departments in this store were .. equipped with electric lights, cash carriers and other labor saving devices. Yamp Valley website

TILLAMOOK, Or. "At the big store in Tillamook my mother flipped through racks of clothes, while I watched the humming cash-tube as it flew backward and forward." Starlite Cafe's Poets Corner

TRINIDAD, Co. Jamieson's Department Store, 150 East Main Street. "The Jamiesons had equipped their store with a complex basket conveyor system that connected each department of the store... Clerks would put the money in a special change box and load it in a basket on the conveyor system to be sent to the central change station." (Jerry Stokes: A walk through the history of Trinidad. 1986)

VAN NUYS, Ca. J.C.Penney, 6454 Van Nuys Blvd. "Modern innovative skill has been utilized in the new Van Nuys J.C.Penney store in a scientific time-saving method to speed up cash transactions. That is through the pneumatic tube system... Opening of the store tomorrow and Friday... It's all done with air pressure supplied from a huge blower on the roof." Van Nuys News, 12 May 1949, p.60
• "Elimination of the pneumatic tube system for money changing will give the store a fresh new appearance." Valley News [Van Nuys], 1 Jan. 1961, p.4

WILLOW GLEN, Ca. Herolds shoe store, First Street. Pneumatic tube system in 1940s/50s with "a round glass and metal cylinder". Willow Glen Resident, 6 Mar. 2002