From Dave Price

BucklesBann, a photo by bucklesw1 on Flickr. Chic: Thought you'd never ask. Let me send Buckles a picture that explains the procedure. You realize these are cloth "banners" which are tacked not pasted. Buckles: This is in response to Chic's question. You know he is not a child of the thirties like you and Richard Reynolds and me, so he doesn't remember when men were iron etc. Here we see four stout-hearted warriors of the Hagenbeck-Wallace advance car high atop Cleveland's Fireproof Hotel Mecca notifying the citizenry of the coming of the show to the Pubic Auditorium for nine (count 'em nine) big days the early spring of 1928. You will note that the guys down on the vertical ladders each have one leg over a rung for safety. The guys sitting on the other ladders act as anchors for the first two. At top left we see W A "Sandy" McPherson out of Nashville and a friend of mine for many years. Banner tackers were also called "tack spitters" since they worked with a mouth full of tacks and a magnetic hammer. You could spot some of them by their missing front teeth. Occasionally one of them would show off and swing on the ladder, providing a bit to the amusement of the crowds which would sometimes gather below, but I have been told by more than one of the oldsters that not one member of the banner brigade ever fell to his death. The shows would send a "banner puller" around to pull these off the walls after show day and Rex Lee, one of a family of advance men, caught pneumonia while pulling banners in high cold winds and died as a result. You might remember his brother "Front Page Frank" Lee, press agent extraordinaire. The tacks went into the mortar, not into the bricks and after so many years of being tacked, some buildings had lost a lot of the mortar and the billers had to hammer wood shims between the bricks to have something to tack. I hope you younger guys are saving this stuff before all my wisdom dies with me.