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Cash Register

James Jacob Ritty, inventor of the first working version of a mechanical cash register, was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1837. Ritty was a barkeeper who opened his first saloon in 1871. In 1882 he opened the Pony House in Dayton, which quickly became a local "hotspot" for dining, drinking, and gaming. Ritty, who called himself a "Dealer in Pure Whiskies, Fine Wines, and Cigars," is said to have attracted a number of famous customers to his saloon, including Buffalo Bill Cody, prizefighter Jack Dempsey, and bankrobber John Dillinger. The bar was also very popular with salesmen who traveled by train because the saloon was located close to the train depot.

One of the biggest problems Ritty had at his bar was that some of his employees were dishonest, and would take the customersê money and pocket it, rather than despositing the cash that was meant to pay for the food, drink, and other wares. Ritty got tired of this behavior. In 1878, he came up with an idea for a possible solution to the problem while on a steamboat trip to Europe.

On the ship, Ritty became intrigued by a mechanism that counted how many times the ship's propeller went around. He wondered if something like this could be made to record the cash transactions made at the Pony House. As soon as he got home to Dayton, Ritty and his brother John began working on a design for such a device. Their first model was inaccurate. It looked like a clock with a keyboard, with hands indicating dollars and cents instead of hours and minutes. The second was not much better. But the third prototype was a success.

The third design operated by pressing a key that represented a specific amount of money. There was as yet no cash drawer. Ritty patented the design in 1879 as "Ritty's Incorruptible Cashier." He opened a small factory at 10 South Main Street in Dayton to manufacture cash registers while still operating his saloon. Shortly thereafter, Ritty became overwhelmed with the responsibilities of running two business, so he sold all his interests in the cash register business to Jacob H. Eckert of Cincinnati, a china and glassware salesman, who formed the National Manufacturing Company. In 1884, Eckert sold the company to John H. Patterson, who renamed the company the National Cash Register Company.

Patterson continued to improve on Rittyês invention, adding paper rolls to record the day's transactions in each price range. This worked by building a hole puncher into each cash register while the paper would have separate invisible columns that would stand for cents or dollars. If the paper had two holes punched in the dollars column, for example, and 50 holes punched in the cent column, the total would be two dollars and fifty cents. When a transaction was completed, a bell rang on the cash register and the amount was noted on a large dial on the front of the machine. During each sale, a paper tape was punched with holes so that the merchant could keep track of sales. At the end of the day, the merchant could add up the holes.

Improvements in the cash register followed from the business Ritty had created. For example, in 1906, while working at the National Cash Register Company, inventor Charles F. Kettering designed a cash register with an electric motor. The National Cash Register Company became NCR Corp. in 1974, which was eventually acquired and spun off by AT&T in the 1990s. Today NCR makes business machines, including cash registers, that use computer technology and electronics.

Ritty died in 1918. His cash register concept lived on, however, as did his bar: Rittyês saloon saw service from 1882 until 1967, even through the Prohibition years. In those dry years, Ritty's Pony House Saloon became the Pony House Stag Hotel, and the Pony House Restaurant and Cafe. Later, William H. Eicher of Daytonês United Moving & Storage preserved its heritage by photographing, removing, and storing Rittyês bar, enabling it to be completely reassembled in Dayton, where it stands today as an historic local landmark.

[April 2002]