Reed's St. Louis Eight Lever

By Dan Allen ... May 2007

I believe, rather than being used by a company called Reed's St Louis Railroad, this lock is actually a "made for" by Miller, for more than likely a "Reed's Hardware store" in St Louis. There are a lot of locks from the early part of the 20th century with airplanes, animals, and other illustrations, that were marked as such to aid in the sale of the lock. I believe "Reed" figured adding a nice little scene of a train going down the track would make the lock more attractive to customers. RR's were pretty standard in the ways they marked their hardware, locks, keys, etc. If this was an actual shortline RR lock, it would probably have the RR's initials stamped on the hasp. Also the fact that no information seems to exist on Reed's Railroad would add to this explanation.