Donna Carr, who still resides in Ames, recalls that the earliest Carr's pool swimsuit baskets were made of thin, woven wood strips much like laundry baskets of the day.  Baskets bearing numbers 100s and 200s were reserved for males and were shelved on the south side by the men’s changing area.  Baskets numbered 300s and 400s were for females and were shelved on the north side.  On hot summer weekends several shifts of young employees were needed to staff the basket check-out.  On such occasions swimmers often numbered over 500 and baskets with those numbers had to be stacked in a rear area.  Some swimmers chose to memorize their basket number and thus avoid the tag hassle.  When tags did become lost, many swimmers voluntarily joined in searching the pool bottom.