Calvert’s Department Store

At one time, Calvert’s was one of three popular department stores downtown.

Martha Jean Robinson’s most vivid memory of that store - she was around 15 years old at the time - was its overhead electric conveyor system which ran from the various departments to the business office on the second-floor balcony. When a payment was made, a clerk would put the cash and a sales slip into a cup, place it on the conveyor and send it to the cashier’s station in the balcony. If change was to be made, it would be returned the same way. "Of course, that was before cash registers," Mrs. Robinson explained. Calvert’s was located on the corner of East Eighth and Main. The building burned in February 1984 and 800 Main Place, which now occupies the site, was completed in November 1987. Mrs. Robinson said the other two department stores were Kerr’s, on East Ninth, and J.B. Lynn where Lindly TV & Appliance is now situated. She said she was "just out of Southwestern" and was named head of Lynn’s millinery department. "Lynn’s was the largest department store," she said, " with three floors. The basement was for housewares, the first floor for piece goods, notions and drygoods and the second floor was ladies-ready-to-wear and millinery" She also recalled that in the 1930s both Kerr’s and Lynn’s had beauty shops on the inside balconies --- Faith Hanna, who will be 99 years old in July, said the thing she remembers most about Lynn’s was that it had an elevator which then was a novelty in Winfield. Faith also recalled Hahn’s dry goods store located just north of the present State Bank building.

Howard Buffum April, 2000