Steelmark Days: A Salute to Men of Steel – July 1962

Sixty years ago this week, Lorain merchants were celebrating their second annual Steelmark Days – A Salute to Men of Steel sales promotion, July 19-20-21, 1962.

Steelmark Days was a way of honoring the men and women of the Lorain Works of U.S. Steel. The front page of the Wednesday, July 18, 1962 Journal (shown above) tells the story. It notes, "Merchants throughout the Lorain area were busy stocking shelves, marking down merchandise prices and doing the myriad things necessary before start of the second annual Steelmark Days.

"The merchants will unite in this sales promotion, which last year was one of the most successful ever held in the area, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

"While no parade or other civic event is planned for this year, the businessmen will endeavor to make up for the fact by the quality and quantity of the merchandise they will make available to the public.

"Most of the merchants in the area, in addition to offering some of the more outstanding bargains of the year, also will be offering free gifts to prospective customers who come in to their stores to register."

The list of free gifts is pretty impressive. Some of the gifts even reinforce the 'steel' aspect of the promotion, including a stainless steel cooking set and stainless steel mixing bowls.

The 'steelmark' that is the focus of the promotion is this symbol (below). According to Wikipedia, it was originated by U. S. Steel and is now a trademark of the American Iron and Steel Institute.

Anyway, it's always nice to see how Lorain merchants, especially those that were located Downtown, could team up to create a memorable shopping event back in the 1950s and 60s. The Journal was pleased as well, because Steelmark Days resulted in a lot of special newspaper ads, many of them full-page. Here are two of them.

Unfortunately, themed shopping events (such as Steelmark Days and Crazy Days) are largely a thing of the past, with the exception of those connected with holidays.