One of the manufacturers of the pneumatic tube systems, Lamson, had a factory here in Syracuse, New York. Department stores and hotels used them extensively. The last one I remember seeing in operation was at the Addis department store here into the 1980s. The store used it mostly to send cash to the office for credit account payments and also for change when the supply at a cash register was getting low. Even in the 80s, some stores offered their own charge account systems. Hospitals use them to quickly move medications and samples from the floors to and from the pharmacy and labs. Banks with drive through teller stations use them as well. Another company here in Syracuse, Diebold, made the tube systems for banks. They later merged with Lamson.

    Bruce Gentry, KA2IVY 

Western Union made extensive use of both pneumatic tubes and conveyor
belts.  They got quite a number of patents in both fields.  Some of
the developments are covered in Western Union Technical Review.

When I was in the  AF there was a pneumatic tube connecting the communications building with the adjutant's office in the headquarters
building.  If a classified message was being sent through the tube in
either direction we were told to be in telephone contact with someone
at the other end of the tube until the message came through.

In my childhood in the small town J.C. Penney store there was a
hand-powered conveyor running between the sales floor and the cashiers
who were located on a balcony above the show windows.  The sales person
would put your money and a receipt into the basket and pull a handle
which would whiz the basket up to the cash handlers, who would make
change and send it back to the sales floor with the receipt.  I never
learned the reason for this - was it to keep the sales people from
handling cash or was it to keep the cash in a place where robbers
would have a hard time getting to it?

    ---

    "Ya can argue all ya wanna, but it's dif'rent than it was."
    "No it ain't! No it ain't!  But ya gotta know the territory."
        Meredith Willson, The Music Man
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