N. N. McLean · Lamar, Colorado · 1917

Tennis Rackets and Balls

Lamar, Colorado, June 1917. N. N. McLean, druggist on one side of his name and jeweler on the other, has a new line of tennis rackets in, plus all kinds of Spalding base ball goods. Two months into the war, the ad makes one careful promise: prices STILL reasonable.

On June 20, 1917, The Lamar Register carried word from N. N. McLean, “The Old Reliable (Est. Jan. 1895)”: “Tennis Rackets and Balls. A NEW LINE JUST RECEIVED.”

The stock is Spalding, and the copy makes the case with a merchant’s plain logic: “The Best Spalding Goods and that is the Best in the Market. Also a full line of all kinds of Spalding Base Ball and Sporting Goods.” One sentence for tennis, one for baseball, ornamental scrolls around the headline and done.

Then comes the line that dates the ad better than the dateline: “PRICES STILL REASONABLE.” June 1917 was two months into America’s war, and every merchant and customer in the country was watching prices climb. That word “still” is doing wartime work.

The signature reveals the range a small-town businessman needed. “Druggist” is printed on one side of McLean’s name and “Jeweler” on the other, with “The Buy Right and Sell Right Store” as the motto underneath. Prescriptions, pocket watches, tennis rackets and base balls, all from the same counter on the plains of Prowers County. Spalding’s reach into towns like Lamar was no accident; the company had been teaching boys the game a dime at a time for years, and the local druggist-jeweler was the last mile of the operation.