The Valentine Manufacturing Company in Wichita, Kansas, built Valentine Diners from 1938 to 1974 as the only significant diner manufacturer outside the Northeast, producing the vast majority of factory-built diners west of the Mississippi. Valentine Diners were small, boxy diners that differed radically from other manufacturers, typically with five to ten stools around an L-shaped counter, often a take-out window, no tables, and at times only standing room. To pay the $5,000 purchase price, owners placed 10% of their daily gross income in a lock box by the front door, and each month a man from the train opened the box and sent the payment to the manufacturer, with that trainman alone holding the key. This diner opened for business on Route 66 in 1956 at Shamrock, Texas, by M.L. Porter and his wife, Alta, as the Porter House Café, and it closed in 1964.