Store History

With a company being around for as long as ours, it is bound to build up quite an interesting history. Here is a very brief accounting of what has gotten us to where we are today:

After working for Lexington Plating Co. for three years, Coleman Shannon purchased "The Brass Shop" at 324 Cedar St., Lexington from Henry Price in January 1949.

After about 3 months, Coleman closed The Brass Shop and went to work for "Setzer's Hardware - Plating & Repairing" on Mt. Tabor Road in Lexington.  He was responsible for setting up the new plating shop and was the manager of the business.  He stayed in that capacity until 1955 when he left Setzer's to open his own business, again.  That was the start of "Shannon's"

This Quonset building was located at 765 East 7th Street in Lexington behind the Thompson Sanitary Supply House and the first location of Shannon's, known then as Shannon's Plating Service.  The business was operated at this location for about 2 years.

 
This 1938 Plymouth, purchased for $125.00, served as a delivery vehicle while we were on East 7th St.

The next move was to 191 North Limestone.  This building is no longer standing and we do not have any pictures of that location.  After a couple of years it was time to move on. 

This was the location for the next few years. 318 East Third St., Lexington.  The business grew at this location. The name of the business changed slightly from time to time, with names such as Shannon's House of Lamps, Shannon's Plating, & Shannon's Polishing. The pictures below show the showroom on 3rd St.        

After several years of major parking problems and the opportunity to purchase our own property, the time came for another move.    Property was purchased at 1210 North Limestone in Lexington.  The business continued to operate out of the 3rd St. location until the new property was ready for occupancy.

These front & back pictures show the Limestone property before the store was ready to open.  The front porch had already been removed.   The current front room was added after about 3 years.

In 1972, the business made a major change.  After some research and investigation, Coleman & Dee traveled to Chicago, Illinois to purchase machinery and supplies to begin manufacturing lamp shades on site.

After a short period of time it was evident that ready-made & custom-made lamp shades was the future of the business.  At that point the polishing and plating business was dissolved. 

Shamrock Shades was the trade name we gave our line of lamp shades and many advances have occurred since the early beginnings.  In the summer of 1979, David Shannon came on full-time & worked side by side with Coleman.

In 1983, David's wife Amy was added to the family business & continues to work in sales & as part of the shade production team.  By 1984, we were out of space to work.

We added a large addition to the rear of the property to move our shade production room.  

We also had the opportunity to bring our children, Kristal & Jeremy, to work with us and be part of their childhood.  See Kristal with Dad...

In about 2004, when our son Jeremy was high school student, he was required to build his own web site. The teachers provided information he could use or download for free to build his site. We had never really considered a store web site and to be honest, didn't really see a need for one. He was working on his site and we started playing with the idea of a web site for Shannon Lamp Service. We thought it might be a good way for our local customers to "see" our store before they drove across town. As the idea grew and early attempts were critiqued by friends and foes, a "shannonlamp.com" was born. We quickly purchased (you get what you pay for when its' free) programs, web space, and domain names. Our lack of understanding on the impact of the www - "World Wide Web" soon faded. We found not only was this a way that local customers could see our store, but so could anyone else in the world. We were almost shocked when we answered the phone early on and the lady on the line said, "I am calling from Dallas, and I want to purchase a lamp I saw on the internet." We are now pleased to receive those calls on a daily basis. We're not sure where technology is going, but we hope we don't wait so long to take part.

2006 found us celebrating our 50th anniversary!  We were delighted to be able to not only survive, but thrive by offering excellent quality and service at an affordable price.  Check out our "press releases" tab and see how the media helped us share our Golden Anniversary.  Who knows what the next chapter in this family business story will be, but we hope it includes you!
 

Coleman Shannon

11-19-1921 ~~  5-17-2016

With the death of Coleman Shannon in 2016, some questioned if the business would continue. The easy answer is, yes.  Even though he would still be seen around the store, he had not worked full-time in the business since 1986. He had also sold the business to David & Amy Shannon nearly 25 years before his death. Even though we mourn his death and miss having him around the store, our business continues thanks to your continued support.