The "Pilfering Pneumatic Canisters" Story

Mr. William Murdock
Inventor of the pneumatic tube system 

It was an ordinary day.  Just got back from the bank after making a deposit at the drive-through.  Turned off the engine and reached for the deposit slip on the passenger's seat only to find I had the entire drive-through canister sitting next to me.  What's bad is it isn't the first time that's happened.  For some reason when I stop at the drive-through and have other customers behind me in line, I try and hurry my transaction and that's what happens.  I have always returned the canister the following day and taken it into the bank.  I"m always thanked and told that I'm not the only one who does it.  

Women making change at a pneumatic system.

Now, my story today has to do with the canister and the system that is used to deliver the canister into the bank and back to the car again.  Called the pneumatic tube message system and was invented in England in 1836 by William Murdock who also was given credit for inventing the oscillating cylinder steam engine, gas lighting, steam gun and made a number of discoveries in chemistry.  

A drawing of an experimental pneumatic elevated
subway from 1867.  The beginning of the subway system?

It was in 1854 that Josiah Clark was issued a patent "for conveying letters or parcels between places by the pressure of air and vacuum."  In 1893 the first pneumatic system was established in the U.S. in Philadelphia by Postmaster General John Wanamaker who had previously employed the system in his department store.  The U.S. Postal System utilized the pneumatic system of office mail delivery in many U.S. cities until the last system in St. Louis was stopped in 1953.  In 1861 the London Pneumatic Despatch Company built a system large enough to transport people.  

Photo taken in Lancaster, PA showing women making
change and using the pneumatic tube system at a local store.

In 1865 the Duke of Bucking- ham, the chairman of the company, was blown through the tube to Euston, a five minute trip.  By 1870 an actual subway beneath the streets of New York began working.  Known as the Beach Pneumatic Transit and featured one car that ran a city block.  As for me, I can remember the use of pneumatic tubes or canisters in many of the department stores in downtown Lancaster, PA.  I loved going to Watt & Shand's or Hager's or Garvin's Department Store and watch my mom pay for her purchases with cash and the clerk putting the money in the canister and sending it to who knows where.  

This is a view inside Lancaster's Watt & Shand Department Store in downtown Lancaster.  It's listed on the photo as being the basement of the store where the pneumatic tubes would lead and where change would be made and sent back to the customer in the department above. 

 As I stood next to mom, I could here and perhaps tell where the metal tubes were moving in the ceiling.  In about a minute or two the canister would return with mom's change.  How that tube knew exactly where to go and return to still boggles my mind. All those stores are now gone from downtown Lancaster as well as the pneumatic tube systems they once used, but the local hospital, newspaper and banks still employ the pneumatic systems.  And, I'm sure they have an extra supply of canisters for customers like me that forget to put the tube back in the system and drive away with it.  Seems they were never able to patent a unit that would stop the pilferage of their canisters by customers such as me.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

Oh yeah!  This is the pneumatic tube system that I have pilfered the canister from a few times.  They know by now that they may have to replace the canister when the little white car with the bald guy goes through it. I usually return it the next day!

 

The "Excited Bank Teller" Story

Forword:  The year was 1810 and our nation was on the brink of a second war with England.  Lancaster, Pennsylvania, my lifetime home was at the time the largest inland town in our young nation with 5,000 residents.  The town was a thriving agricultural community, but was beginning to grow commercially as well as gaining a manufacturing economy.  One thing that was missing in Lancaster was a bank.  

41 North Queen Street

So, on January 17, leading citizens formed Farmers Bank of Lancaster which was housed in a rented house at 41 North Queen Street in downtown Lancaster.  Three years later the British were setting fire to our new Capitol in Washington, D.C. and Lancaster's new bank was moving into its new home at the corner of Duke and King Streets.  It served the community well for the next 150 years until in 1963 the Farmers Bank and Lancaster County National Bank merged into Lancaster County Farmers National Bank.  Over the next seven years more banks from neighboring cities were consolidated into what was then known in 1970 as National Central Bank.  CoreStates Hamilton Bank was the successor to that consolidation and was formed in 1980.  Then in 1998 First Union Bank acquired CoreStates Hamilton.  That in turn became Wachovia Bank in 2001 and seven years later became Wells Fargo.  

It was an ordinary day.  The year was 1950 and Mom and Dad were sitting with me at their bank in downtown Lancaster.  They had just opened a bank account for me so I could begin to save money for .... I'm not sure what!  But, they thought I should have a bank account to save whatever I could afford to put into the bank account. Maybe because they never had a bank account when they were young and they wanted something better for me.  I can still remember that little black ledger booklet that during every trip to the bank the teller would stamp with a rubber stamp and write in the amount that I brought to the bank to deposit.  I really don't ever remember withdrawing any money, but do remember making deposits into the account.  I have gone through quite a few changes of bank names and logos, but it is still the same bank to me.  The account now bears the name of both my wife and I, but it is still the same account I started in 1950.  Our debit cards today may say Wells Fargo on them and feature a stage coach pulled by six horses, but we are still making deposits and withdrawing money from that same account I started in 1950 when I was skinny, crew-cut six-year-old.   A few months ago I went to the MAC machine to withdraw some money and when I placed my card into the slot, a note appeared on the monitor of the machine.  It read: Congratulations for being a member of Wells Fargo for 66 years!  We value your business.  Wow, pretty neat!  Told my wife when I got home about the neat experience I had at the bank Drive-Thru.  But, that wasn't the end of it.  Today, I pulled into the Drive-Thru to deposit a check and after placing it in the plastic tube and sending it into the bank, the young male teller turned on my speaker and said, "Mr. Woods, thank you so much for being a customer with this bank for 66 years.  That's remarkable!  I wasn't even born when you opened up that account with the bank.  I see here you were six-years-old.  Pretty neat!!"  "Well, thank you!" I answered.  "And, is there anything else I can do for you today?" he questioned me.  "No, I think you did enough.  Thank you." I once again said.  His excitement was very noticeable.  I'm sure he doesn't get an extreme amount of septuagenarians making deposits at his window.  And, to have been a member of his bank for 66 years.  That had to be a shock to him.  To me ..... well, it's just neat to be able to drive a car through the Drive-Thru without running into the deposit unit. Now, I have to remember on every trip to the bank to remember to place that little tube back in the machine before I leave.  I'm getting too many of them at home!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.