Admittedly, I’ve never been great about saving receipts. Unless it’s a business expense, a warrantied purchase, or something that I’m not sure I’ll actually keep, (or all of the above) that receipt is usually crumpled up and tossed away with the bag it came in. I think most of us are probably wired that way. Receipts are simply one more piece of clutter that we just don’t need.
So it’s with some irony that in the past year or so—through the help of collectors like John Floyd and Pete Lewnes—I’ve assembled a binder of over 200 vintage Laurel business receipts and other paper ephemera that date from the recent past… all the way back to the 1930s.
It’s turned into a most unexpected scrapbook; a collection of familiar names and places evoked not by photos, but by those simple little strips of paper. It’s funny how something so insignificant as a receipt can trigger memories of the business itself, your experiences there, and the time frame in general.
I’ll eventually get around to scanning the entire lot, but I wanted to share a sampling. We’ll start with some of the more recent ones that many of you probably remember chucking away at one time or another yourselves.
Here’s a batch from the late 1980s to 1990—a snapshot of Laurel Lakes Centre in its heyday, which happened to be my high school years:
A couple more from nearby in 1990:
Here’s a very recent one I kept personally, when the Laurel Art Center on Main Street closed its doors in 2012. And yes, that’s 75% off. There’s no sale quite like a going out of business sale.
And then there are some from the more distant past. Here’s a pair from Laurel Shopping Center in the 1960s:
When we think of receipts, we typically think of the type shown above—those thin, white ribbons of paper with digital printing. That’s been the norm for most, but many businesses also utilized larger, invoice-style tickets that were offset-printed with their name, logo, contact information, and space for writing things in by hand.
The further back we go, the more handwriting we see.
Some of the older businesses, like Cook’s Laurel Hardware Company on Main Street, stuck with the handwritten receipt throughout the decades. Compare this one from 1988, and one from nearly 30 years earlier:
While we’re still on Main Street, here’s a receipt from Ashby & Harrison. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, their 309 Main Street address should. It’s the building that became Gayer’s Saddlery, which today is Outback Saddlery.
By this point, you’ve probably also noticed the unusual phone numbers on some of these. The “PArkway 5” exchange is technically still in use today: the letters “P” and “A” plus the number 5 comprised the familiar “725” prefix that many Laurel numbers continue to use.
And prior to the rotary phone’s arrival in 1954, those numbers were even stranger. Imagine having a three-digit telephone number today!
Businesses like gas stations often required a bit more information on their receipts—fields where they could quickly and efficiently total up various services. Here’s one from the Laurel Texaco on Rt. 1, which sat beside the Little Tavern:
Another interesting thing about old receipts is that they invite you to learn more about the businesses themselves. Here’s one for another gas station—this one at Laurel Shopping Center. But it wasn’t any old gas station. Hardingham’s Service Center was owned and operated by Harry Hardingham, the popular two-term Mayor of Laurel in the 1950s.
Occasionally, you come across receipts that were once issued to other mayors—like this one from 1938 that belonged to Hiram J. Soper, who would go on to become a two-term mayor himself immediately after Hardingham:
Other familiar names appear in these old scraps of paper; records of fleeting moments in time. This one shows Harry Fyffe (of Fyffe’s Service Center) having purchased two floral sprays from Barkman’s Flower Shop in November, 1953. They appear to have been for the funerals of “Mr. Phair” and “Mr. Phelps”—two other well-known Laurel family names.
Another interesting set comes from Laurel’s many garages and car dealerships throughout the years.
One of my favorites in the collection isn’t a receipt, but rather an actual price tag. This came from a miniature Rubik’s Cube keychain I found recently on eBay—just like the one I remember getting from Zayre as a kid. Of course, when I was a kid, the first thing I had to do was get rid of that price tag. Today, ironically, it’s the other way around. All I wanted was the price tag.
Lost Laurel 