Located at 129 N Main
Paints, Oils, Varnishes, and Window Glass.
When he was 15 years old Henry Lyne stopped school to go to work in his father’s store, and he has been working in that business ever since. “I believe I hold a record in that respect.” Mr. Lyne claimed. “Statistics show that only one man in a thousend remains continuously in the same business for 50 years. I’ve been connected with the Lyne Paint Company at 129 Main Street for 50 years. My father owned the business first, and since his death I have. There have been only two small changes in that time in connection with it. The original concern was a drug and paint business. About 40 years ago I dropped the drugs and continued with paint. Also, the original building has been replaced once, but the second building stands on the same location.” – Evansville Courier 20 July 1941
Romance of Yesteryear Permeates Old Henderson Business Institution
By Ruth Ann Gregory
(Courier Staff Writer)
HENDERSON, KY 18 Feb. 1951
Don’t let that sign “Dependable Since 1850” that hangs in front of the Lyne Paint company on Main street here mislead you
For Lyne’s has been dependable since 1849-or maybe even longer than that. It’s Henderson’s oldest business house, and it’s still being operated by grandsons of the man who founded it more than a decade before the Civil War.
Business Founded Early
George and Kenneth Lyne, present proprietors of the high-ceilinged old paint and glass store, aren’t sure just when the business was founded. But they know it must have been earlier than 1849, for in the Henderson county clerk’s office they’ve found the record of a mortgage given by their grandfather, George Lyne, to L. H. Lyne (his brother), John McCullagh, A. J. Morrison, and W. H. Moore. The mortgage gave George Lyne’s store merchandise of ” medicines, oils, paints and dry stuffs” as security. It was signed Jan. 11, 1849, and paid off a year later.
By 1870, Mr. Lyne’s 16-year-old son James Henry was ready for a job in his father’s drug and paint store. “Business conditions in Henderson had taken a turn for the worse after the Civil War.” explains Mr. Kenneth. “In fact, there was a slump all over the country that was about to lead to the panic of 1873. “The old man put it squarely on the line to his son–if the business was to go on, he’d have to put his shoulder to the wheel.
“But Grandfather Lyne must have been a business optimist, for in 1873 he built a brand-new store building. It’s the same one we’re using now.”
Served as Bookkeeper
Among other things, young James Henry Lyne served as bookkeeper for the store. In those days, It was business custom to run charge accounts for a whole year at a time. Bills went out on the first of January.
“Father used to tell us he had to spend the whole month of December drawing off the accounts.” recalls Mr. George. “He had to itemize every purchase made during the whole year—from a penny’s worth on up. Although he stuck to it faithfully, father never stuck to it faithfully, father never liked the long hours of the drug business.
Shortly before the turn of the century, he sold his stock of drugs to two other Henderson druggists and bought their stock of paint and glass–with the understanding that he’d quit selling drugs and they’d quit selling paints and glass.
When American manufacturers adopted the idea of ready-mixed paints. Lyne’s became one of the first stores in the Tri-State to handle he new product.
George H. Lyne, eldest grandson of the founder, came into the business in 1923 after a stint with the Henderson Municipal Power company and the Public Service company of New Jersey. His brother Kenneth, who’d covered the field from Massachusetts to California in jobs as civil engineer, school teacher, cotton buyer and land company manager, joined up in 1934. They’re the last of the Lynes, and they’ve handled the business alone since their father’s death in 1942. Assisting them are Henry Brink and a young Englishman, Derek Fletcher, who came to Henderson from London three years ago.
