 Throughout the life of the building incandescent lights had a usage sufficient for Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company's Incandescent Lamp Division carried a stock in Detroit specifically for the Hammond Building.The roof of the building was used to signal ships in the Detroit River to warn them of storm conditions on the Great Lakes.In February 1906, a night watchman, William Urquhart, mistook an open elevator door as an open door in the darkness and fell down the elevator shaft from the first floor to the basement.