Sterling Lindner Davis Christmas Tree

Sterling Lindner Davis department store of Cleveland was a combination of three smaller stores — Sterling & Welch Co., W.B. Davis Co., and Lindner Co. The store closed in 1968.

This postcard was mailed in 1952. The description on the back of this postcard is as follows:

Each Christmas season, thousands of Clevelanders and visitors from miles around come to see the magnificent spectacle of Sterling Lindner Davis' traditional Christmas tree, towering in the Great Court. 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, Once again, our Christmas tree awaits you…proud symbol that "There's Magic in a gift from S-L-D.!

The Sterling Lindner Christmas Tree tradition was started in the late 1920s and continued until 1967 (the three names were combined in 1950 and the Davis was dropped from the name in 1958). I also have a couple of different Sterling Lindner Christmas Tree postcards from the 1960s. On the 1960s postcards the tree is described as 60 feet tall — "America's tallest inddoor tree, symbol of Christmas in Cleveland for well over 30 years."

The Cleveland Memory Project has black-and-white photos of some other Sterling Lindner Davis Christmas Trees.