Few Old Signs Left

1920

Many of the familiar trade signs used to advertise business enterprises have been discarded entirely in the onward sweep of advertising progress or displaced by more or less artistic displays of paint and electric lights.

One of the most common of the oldtimers that has vanished, says the New York Sun, was the wooden Indian, which kept its silent, stolid vigil beside the door of the tobacconist. The significant boot that once was suspended over the shop of the repairer of boots and shoes is also only a memory. So are the anvil hanging above the entrance to the blacksmith's shop and the horse's heads over livery-men's doorways.

The origin of the cigar store Indian dates back to Sir Walter Raleigh and his English settlers in our sunny South. These fortune seekers, visiting the unseen New World in the seventeenth century, and for the first time in the history of the white race learning the use of the tobacco weed from the North American Indian, symbolized this industry by the red man's imposing figure.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 6.

Bellows Now Little Used

1914

Once Almost Indispensable Furniture of Every Kitchen Has Been Largely Done Away With

The bellows, in the forms in which once it was familiar in every household, is still used in homes where open fires are maintained, but the giant bellows that in old times was as necessary an adjunct of the blacksmith's shop as the forge itself, is steadily being supplanted by blowers of other sorts.

Now the village blacksmith takes down the big old time bellows, stores it on the beams up under the roof and installs near the fire a compact little rotary blower which is operated by turning a crank, and where electricity is available men now use that for blowing purposes.

In a long established city blacksmith shop located on the downtown waterfront, where once, across the way, the wharves were lined with tall sparred sailing ships, there was in those days one of those big, old time bellows. When the blacksmith wanted to blow the fire he rested one hand and forearm on the end of the long lever and swayed on it gently, while with the other hand, occasionally he patted the fire. But now?

Now from the wharves across the way the sailing ships have disappeared, and from this old waterfront blacksmith's shop the old time bellows has disappeared, too. The anvil is still there, to be sure, and people halt now just as they have always done, to look in and see the sparks fly when the blacksmith and his helper strike on the red hot iron; but now when the blacksmith wants to blow on the fire he doesn't put his arm on a big bellows lever and sway and sway; now he simply reaches up and moves a little switch. That starts a steady blast, which can be regulated to any force that may be required.

Old Anvil Discovered By Nevada Prospector

1939

An anvil, manufactured in England in the year 1798, was discovered by George Chubey, Nevada prospector, while examining old prospect holes along the strike of a vein on the Fallini property on Eden Creek, the Goldfield News reports.

Chubey was attracted to the anvil by its appearance and found the date stamped into the article. Nye county residents were reported wondering how the anvil came to its resting place in the lonely Nevada hills.

—Nevada State Journal, Reno, NV, April 24, 1939, page 4.