In 1883 Dayton contained five families. The following year Colonel Robert Patterson bought a large property in the neighbourhood, and helped to develop a small town, which has since grown into a thriving manufacturing centre. His two sons, John H. Patterson and Frank J. Patterson, bought out all the original proprietors of the National Cash Register, greatly improved the machine's mechanism, and built the huge factory which employs about 4,000 men, women, and girls, and is one of the best-equipped establishments in the world to promote both an economical output and the comfort of the employés. The Company's buildings at Dayton cover 892,144 square feet of floor-space, and utilise 140 acres of ground. In convenience and attractiveness, and for light, heat, and ventilation, and all sanitary things, these structures are designed to be models of any used for factory purposes. A machine is made and sold every 2-1/2 minutes in the Dayton, Berlin, and Toronto factories collectively. According to its destination, it records dollars, shillings, marks, kronen, korona, francs, kroner, guildens, pesetas, pesos, milreis, rupees, or roubles. Registers are also made to meet the needs of the Celestials and the Japanese.
So necessary is it for these machines to be ever improving, that the Company, with a wisdom that prevails more largely, perhaps, in the United States than elsewhere, offer substantial rewards to the employé who records in a book kept specially for the purpose any suggestion which the committee, after due examination, consider likely to improve some detail of mechanism or manufacture. Five departments are entirely devoted to experiments carried out by a corps of inventors working with a special body of skilled mechanics. New patents accrue so fast as a result of this organised research that the National Company now owns 537 letters patent in the United States and 394 in foreign countries.
Many ideas come from outside. If they appear profitable they are bought and turned over to the Patents Department, which hands them on to the experimenters. These build an experimental model, which differs in many respects from the types hitherto manufactured. A cash register must be above all things strong, so that it can bear a heavy blow without getting out of order, and must retain its accuracy under all conditions.