Showing posts with label Sterling Lindner Davis Department Store. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sterling Lindner Davis Department Store. Show all posts

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Sterling Lindner Davis Department Store

Sterling Lindner-Davis Christmas tree, 1936

Located on grand Euclid Avenue at East 13th Street, this department store was a conglomerate of three other stores (hence the mouthful of a moniker) and as you can see, they always had a very large Christmas tree. Sterling Lindner Davis began the tradition of putting a stupidly enormous Christmas tree inside their atrium, starting in 1927. Legend has it the tree grew a foot while inside the store.

From a 1952 postcard:
A live, 50 ft. tree, festooned with 60 lbs. of 'icicles', 1000 yds. of tinsel, 1500 ornaments, and illuminated by 6 banks of 750 candle-watt spotlights. It requires 650 man-power hours to trim by swinging stages suspended from the skylight.
Their "Santaland" included a device where you could insert a coin and receive a gift that came down a slide, a train, and an enchanted forest display.

Update September 2023:  The former Sterling-Lindner Building is now home to the City Club of Cleveland.

Sources:
Cleveland Christmas Memories (about.com)
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
Cleveland Memory Project
POSTCARDY: the postcard explorer