Published On: 12.10.23 | 

By: Michelle Matthews

If you saw this contraption on your vacation, it was probably made in Alabama

A coin-operated viewer made by SeeCoast Manufacturing stands on the Fairhope Municipal Pier overlooking Mobile Bay. (Michelle Matthews / This is Alabama)

Roughly two million people visit Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota each year to see the 60-foot-high faces of four American presidents carved into the granite. For a closer look at those faces, visitors can use a coin-operated viewer that has an Alabama connection: It’s made by SeeCoast Manufacturing Co., a woman-owned small business in Fairhope.

SeeCoast viewers can be found all over the country and around the world – anywhere there’s a view that begs to be magnified, including Alaska, Key West, the CN Tower in Toronto, Niagara Falls, the Santa Monica Pier, Sydney Harbor in Australia and many others.

The company is housed in “an unassuming little metal building,” says Sarah Jones, who works in sales and marketing. But in the office of SeeCoast’s president, Geraldine Cain, a world map hanging on the wall is streaked with red lines connecting Fairhope to 80-plus countries where SeeCoast products are sold.

Gerri Cain’s late father-in-law, Kenneth Cain, founded the company in 1960. In the early 1950s, he bought a few coin-operated telescopes from the American Science Center in Chicago. He and his sons, Kenny and Geoffrey, would tinker with them in the garage. According to the company’s history on its website, the Cains left a couple of the telescopes at Pensacola’s Bayfront Auditorium, where they quickly became popular at a dime per view. Then they started placing viewers in other locations.

Kenneth and his sons would make an adventure out of collecting coins from locations along the Gulf Coast. Eventually, Geoffrey dropped out of college to help his father with the fledgling family business. SeeCoast acquired American Science Center, which had developed the Mark I model, and eventually designed the Mark II and III, all of which are still made in Fairhope.

During his tenure, Geoffrey established relationships with state and national park systems, which were a natural fit for the viewers, since they’re intended to be permanent fixtures, built to withstand the elements. The viewers also were perfect for enhancing the view from skyscrapers like the original World Trade Center in New York City and the Sears (Willis) Tower and John Hancock Building in Chicago. Upon Geoffrey’s death in 2017, his wife, Gerri, took over.

The tag on the side of SeeCoast’s viewers identifies them as being made in Fairhope, Alabama. (Michelle Matthews / This is Alabama)

Despite the growth of the company, the viewers haven’t changed much over the years – except that they now accept two quarters instead of a dime. They still offer either binocular or telescope optics that can magnify objects by 10 or 20 times their actual size. “The overall design is the same,” Jones says of the Mark I, II and III models made of stainless steel, aluminum and brass. Most customers tell her they want “the vintage or classic style” – to which she replies, “You’re in luck.”

The biggest change users might notice is a sharper view, thanks to SeeCoast’s partnership with EnChroma, a company that makes color blindness-correcting lenses that can be added to the binoculars or telescopes. For those without color blindness, the lenses give a high-definition effect to the view.

Each viewer is made to order, a process that can take six to eight weeks. “We make sure each one is perfect before we send it out,” Jones says. The viewers are mechanically operated, requiring no batteries or electricity. A timing mechanism works like a wind-up clock to provide a view lasting for a minute and 30 seconds to two minutes before the shutter closes and the machine goes dark.

The company is “the only source for purchasing completely American-made binoculars and telescopes,” Jones says – which is why most viewers have the SeeCoast label. And the products are built to last. “We refurbished a viewer that was original to our opening date, acquired in 1960,” Jones says. “It’s back out there making more money.”

In addition to being found at tourist spots all over the world, the viewers are in some vacation and celebrity homes as well. Rocker Lenny Kravitz has one of the bestselling Mark II binoculars on the pool deck of one of his homes.

A world map hanging in Geraldine Cain’s office shows some of the locations where SeeCoast viewers are used. (Michelle Matthews / This is Alabama)

The viewers come in neutral shades of gray and sepia, as well as in capri blue. All of the viewers made for Walt Disney World are white. SeeCoast can also do custom colors, like the pink one they made for Coach headquarters in Manhattan. Princess and Carnival cruise ships offer the viewers on their observation decks.

In Alabama, viewers can be found on the Fairhope Municipal Pier, on the decks of the Battleship USS Alabama in Mobile, in Cheaha State Park and on Birmingham’s Vulcan statue, to name a few.

Despite its global reach, SeeCoast has fewer than 10 employees and very little turnover. Michael Lambert, the production manager, has worked there for 35 years, and JoAnn Styron, who, among other tasks, assembles the timing mechanisms, has been there for 38 years. In such a small company, the staff members are like family, and they all wear many hats.

An old-fashioned chalkboard in the manufacturing area lists the orders and the status of each viewer on order, and they build between 250 and 300 viewers each year.

“It’s a small place, but we do a lot here,” Jones says.

This story was previously published by This is Alabama. Want to read more good news about Alabama? Sign up for the This is Alabama newsletter here.