In an age where “smart” phones are the norm, phone booths have become a rarity lately. Most people not only have a phone with them, they have instant access to the Internet (talk about coming a long way from the rotary phone!)
It’s no wonder some folks are surprised when they visit rural Amish Country. What has been deemed as no longer relevant is a necessity here. Because the Amish don’t use telephones in their homes, phone booths provide a place for them to make calls in case of an emergency or for business purposes. Many of these booths are simple in appearance with a door and a window. They’re not quite like the booths you might have seen in cities. In fact, these booths are commonly mistaken as outhouses to the passerby.
Our Jay Lehman (the founder of Lehman’s) became intrigued with these simple structures. Jay has always had an appreciation for Amish ingenuity and a love for photography, so through the years, he started snapping photos of Amish phone booths around Ohio. Twenty photos later, he had one unique photo collection.
Jay’s photos were eventually made into a poster that still hangs in our store in Kidron, Ohio. (If you’re looking to catch a glimpse, it’s on the long wall that stretches from the main entrance way to the café.) Many customers loved this poster so much that they asked if it was for sale. This is how Lehman’s newest puzzle came to be. We decided to take Jay’s collage of photos and turn it into something folks from all over can enjoy. There isn’t a puzzle quite like ours, and it’s sure to be a great conversation starter. But more importantly, it shares a part of Ohio that many people have not seen before, a place that Jay and many of us around here love.
