Earlier key driven adding machines, like the comptometer, featured eight or more columns of nine keys, which made them cumbersome and costly and their operators prone to mistakes.

The invention won an international grand prize during the 1904 World's Fair and was heralded as a "modern life preserver" in an office journal.

William H. Hopkins, the inventor of the Standard Adding Machine, was a minister.

He continued to invent during those years and to find better ways to make an adding machine.

In the decades since, the building housed businesses such as St. Louis Pump & Equipment Co., Lee Paper Co., and most recently, Harrison-Williams Store Fixtures.