By Brown & Bigelow
Sometimes an advertising card leads to a business that disappeared decades ago. The building is gone, the telephone number has been forgotten, and finding the people behind the name becomes a research project of its own.
This little Butch card led somewhere different.
It led to a business that is still there.
The card features Butch, the mischievous dog created by artist Albert Staehle and used on advertising playing cards produced by Brown & Bigelow. In this scene, Butch sits beside a freshly painted fire hydrant, looking rather unhappy about his encounter with the wet paint.
Below the illustration is a simple advertisement:
MORETON CLEANERS
WAVERLY, N.Y.
PHONE 540
That three-digit telephone number gives the card an unmistakably different feel from the Moreton Cleaners of today. But remarkably, the name has survived.
Moreton Cleaners
Moreton Cleaners is still operating in Waverly, New York, at 413 Broad Street. The company traces its history to 1940, meaning it has served the area for more than eight decades.
Today, Moreton Cleaners provides dry-cleaning and laundry services for individuals as well as business and government customers. The company also serves communities well beyond Waverly, on both sides of the New York–Pennsylvania state line.
That cross-border reach makes much more sense when you look at a map.
Waverly sits directly on the Pennsylvania border. Immediately south is South Waverly, Pennsylvania, followed by Sayre and Athens. Although they are separate municipalities—and even cross a state line—they have long functioned as an interconnected community.
And running through the middle of that story are the railroads.
A Town Built Along the Tracks
Look at a map of Waverly and Sayre and one thing quickly stands out: railroad tracks are everywhere.
That isn’t an accident.
The Erie Railroad was instrumental in Waverly’s development. When the railroad arrived in the mid-19th century, the village’s commercial activity increasingly developed around the railroad and its station. Broad Street became part of Waverly’s growing business center.
Later, the Lehigh Valley Railroad connected with the Erie at Waverly, while just across the Pennsylvania line, Sayre developed into one of the Lehigh Valley Railroad’s major centers.
The Sayre railroad shops became an enormous operation, employing thousands of people over the years. Railroad workers and their families lived throughout Sayre, Athens, South Waverly, Waverly and the surrounding communities.
By the time Moreton Cleaners opened around 1940, it was opening its doors in a community whose economy and identity had been shaped by railroads for generations.
Moreton Cleaners in the Steam Era
The timing is particularly interesting.
When Moreton Cleaners opened, steam locomotives were still working the rails through the region. The Lehigh Valley Railroad began converting to diesel power during the 1940s and completed that transition in the early 1950s.
So the earliest customers of Moreton Cleaners would have known a very different Waverly from the one we see today—a place of passenger trains, freight traffic, railroad yards and a large population whose livelihoods were directly or indirectly connected to the railroad.
There is no evidence, at least so far, that Moreton Cleaners had a particular business relationship with the railroads. But the railroad industry was an important part of the community in which the cleaner opened and grew.
It also makes the location on Broad Street, Waverly’s commercial corridor, particularly interesting.
Was Moreton Cleaners originally located at today’s 413 Broad Street address? Was it somewhere else when it first opened? And was the business already on Broad Street when someone ordered this little deck of Butch advertising cards?
Those are questions still waiting for answers.
Phone 540
One of my favorite details on the card may ultimately be one of the most useful:
PHONE 540
No area code. No exchange. Just three numbers.
Old telephone directories may eventually help establish exactly when Moreton Cleaners used that number. If a series of directories can show when 540 first appeared beside the Moreton name—and when it disappeared—we may be able to narrow the date of this card considerably.
Those directories could also answer an even bigger question: Who was Moreton?
The company dates its beginning to 1940, but I have not yet confirmed the name of the person or family who originally established the business. Later records show changes in the corporate structure and ownership behind Moreton Cleaners, while the Moreton name continued.
That is another trail still being followed.
More Than 80 Years Later
Perhaps the best part of this card is that its story didn’t end.
Businesses represented on old advertising cards are often long gone. Sometimes all that remains is a company name printed beneath an illustration.
Moreton Cleaners is different.
The telephone number has changed. The community has changed. Steam locomotives no longer move through Waverly and Sayre. The great railroad operations that once employed thousands no longer dominate daily life in the valley.
But Moreton Cleaners is still cleaning clothes.
More than 80 years after the company began, the name remains part of Waverly’s business community, serving personal, business and government customers throughout the region.
And somewhere along the way, someone at Moreton Cleaners decided to advertise the business with a deck of playing cards featuring a mischievous gray dog named Butch.
At least one of those cards survived.
Now it has another job to do: lead us back into the story.
Research continues
There are still pieces of this story I hope to uncover, including the founders of Moreton Cleaners, its original location, the years associated with telephone number 540, and photographs or advertisements from its early years.
If you have memories, photographs, advertisements, or information about Moreton Cleaners, Waverly, or the business community of the Penn-York Valley, I would love to hear from you.
Sometimes the smallest piece of information is the one that opens the next door.
Summary
Advertiser: Moreton Cleaners
Trade name: Moreton Cleaners
Location: Waverly, New York
Known locations: 413 Broad Street; Waverly, New York; South Waverly, Pennsylvania; Sayre; Athens
Butch-era address: [Confirm date]
Nearby railroads: Erie Railroad; Lehigh Valley Railroad
Business type: dry-cleaning and laundry services
Founded: 1940
Butch card probable period: [Confirm date]
Historical note: Moreton Cleaners is still operating in Waverly, New York, more than 80 years after the company began.
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