"No miracle medicines but early drugstores had friendly touch" from the June 10, 1976 Door County Advocate
By JEANNE OYEN
No miracle medicines but early drugstores had friendly touch
By JEANNE OYEN
Why was it that stepping into a drugstore years ago made you feel better whether you were sick or not? Whatever happened to those nearly forgotten places where the pharmacist dispensed a whole lot more than a box of hand rolled pills for less than a dollar? These questions ran through my mind as I looked down from the small balcony office overlooking Bassett's drug store the day before it was officially closed.
A newcomer to this small Northeastern Wisconsin community of Sturgeon Bay, I had enjoyed working as a Registered Pharmacist in this drugstore that was so much like my father's had been back in Chicago.
I glanced up at my reflection in the blurred glass of an antique mirror hung at the head of the stairs. I half expected to see the tall dapper ghost of the first proprietor looking over my shoulder as he adjusted his tie and prepared to descend to the prescription room for another day.
Nostalgia swept over me as I ruefully took down my Wisconsin license so carefully enclosed in the worn walnut frame in which that same original owner Clark Bassett had so proudly displayed his license when he opened up this business in 1907.
Even here among the stacks of musty ledgers, the old familiar essence so characteristic of all drugstores lingered. Closing my eyes I could just envision how this store must have been before modernization. The moment you entered the front door your nose would remind you that powerful medicines were mixed and stored here. The strong clean wintergreen, pungent herbs and aromatic essential oils — all blended and wafted from the prescription room. Along the walls stately polished wooden cases with gleaming glass fronts contained a dazzling array of crystal falcons of imported perfumes, powders, creams, sachets, colognes and bath salts. All emanated a potpourri of fragrance, the sweet scent of exotic Paris.
Nearer the front door would be another display case holding rows of the finest tobacco and cigars. As the clerk reached inside to offer a selection to a discriminating patron the warm moist aroma of Havana would swirl out to envelope them. On a counter near the colorful racks spilling over with magazines and books, stacks of newspapers waited. Tantalizing were the heaps of candy in open bins, opulent boxes of chocolates and jars of barley sticks, a penny apiece.
Coffee brewing and a subtle whiff of fresh doughnuts would lead you by the nose to the long magnificent soda fountain. It wasn't just the many flavors of rich ice cream in a wobbly tower melting over the top of a crisp sugar cone, or the awesome concoctions topped with whipping cream and red maraschino cherries that made this the social center of the community.
How have we ever managed without that marvelous institution which not only provided gastronomic delights but also was the perfect setting for neighborly encounters, exchange of news and local gossip, and most important of all, the conducting of many a romantic courtship? I am sure the demise of the soda with two straws, leisurely consumed in a cozy corner booth, must have at least some relationship to the increasing lack of communication between people today.
But of course then as now the true focal point of the entire establishment was the pharmacist. Trained to understand the compounding, dosage and use of a vast variety of drugs and chemicals, he would with a combination of intuition and experience manage to read and follow the frequently undecipherable scrawl of a hurried doctor's written directions.
Besides filling prescriptions and giving advice on medications when requested being a good listener was an essential qualification for this profession. Long before the psychiatrist's couch was in vogue the community druggist served as an escape valve for many troubled customers.
It occurred to me that the small community drugstore, as much as part of our American culture as Coca Cola and ice cream on apple pie, was not only much changed but perhaps in danger of disappearing forever.
Yet I realized that change is not necessarily bad. While the antiseptically white metal shelves of a modern prescription lab are not stocked with a many-hued assortment of glass stoppered bottles and jars containing mysterious powders and potions with long Latin names, they are filled with many life saving and sustaining drugs.
It is hard to imagine that earlier time when, despite the best of care and most studied diagnoses, only the hardiest survived the yearly epidemics of sickness. What those early druggists and doctors would have given for the antibiotics and other "wonder drugs" we take for granted.
Nevertheless my curiosity about the past had been aroused. On the desk before me lay a yellowed ancient looking prescription that had fallen from an old worn dispensatory as it had been packed away with the other reference books. Hamilton Drugs and the date 1876 were barely legible. Was that the name of the first drugstore; had it been here in this location?
I found myself in succeeding days pouring over the pages of history books dealing with this area. My best source of all was microfilmed copy of the local newspapers. The Door County Advocate had been in continual existence since 1862.
As I followed the contemporary accounts of the Civil War and lists of local men involved I felt I had stepped back in time. I found myself learning a history lesson about this community, which was now my home, in a way no textbook could ever teach.
I learned that in the early 1860's most of the medicinal needs were taken care of by the local doctors or by mail order firms located in the east. The marvelous cures promised by such patent medicines as Roback's Bitters (the percentage of alcohol is scrupulously not mentioned) and Ayer's Pills are incredible. Proclaiming to be effective for almost any common ailment from warts, impotence, and baldness to languor and the "ague" they must have been in demand because their large block ads were repeated weeks for many years.
Usually in those days the front section of the doctor's office served as a dispensary where an apprentice made up the various ointments, liniments, pills, powders and liquid preparations according to the doctor's own favored formulae.
Evidently a common complaint in both animal and human patients was infestation of tapeworms. A large glass jar containing a long specimen recently parted from its host would be placed in a prominent position in the front window of the doctor's office. It served as a mute but powerful testimonial to that doctor's skill. Naturally the longer the tapeworm the better qualified the doctor.
There, net to pages devoted to a serious discussion of the impending possibility of impeachment in Jan. 1867 was Dr. Pommier's ad telling about his wonderful cures, "especially tapeworms."
In August 1867 Dr. F. J. Despine set up a store and office on Cedar St. (now 3rd Ave.) next to the Cedar St. Hotel and very close to the site of the now closed Bassett's. This was the first drugstore for in the following spring John McKinney took over this store and in September 1868 it was officially known as the Union drug store. But I almost overlooked this revelation in my chagrin over the one-sided presentation of objections to women's suffrage that was featured in that issue. A drug store may have arrived but Women's Lib had not.
The steamship schedules were always given a great deal of space, reminding me that access to this still pioneer settlement was very much dependent upon the often storm wracked inland seas that were the highways that brought supplies and travelers to these shores.
But Sturgeon Bay was not destined to be a primitive outpost despite the gruesome reports of that great fire in October 1871 that devastated so many areas of the mid-west. It went on undaunted. By Sept. 1872 the idea of building a bridge was already being introduced and in February 1873 John McKinney's store was advertising "nobby valentines" while the town fathers were considering the proposal that a "sidewalk the whole length of Cedar St. would be both useful and ornamental."
That modern innovation would be constructed of wood, no doubt a tremendous improvement over the muddy path that bespattered milady's long skirts as the horses and carriages clattered down the busy thoroughfare.
In 1875 Dr. McEacham took over McKinney's store and it was called Reliable Drugs. It carried not only drugs, toys, stationery and toiletries but also paint and wallpaper. The age of the modern drugstore had arrived; and a daily stagecoach between Sturgeon Bay and Green Bay was a reality too.
In 1883 E.E. Hutchinson MD opened a store and in his ad reminded prospective customers that his highly qualified druggist spoke German and English. Hard working immigrants were seeking their fortune in Sturgeon Bay too. In July 1884 Hamilton & Co. Drugs took over the stock of McEacham's store. At last I had placed the owner of that old prescription.
In the 1890's several drug stores were flourishing in our prosperous town and the soda fountain was an important part of those stores, H. E. Tanner's ad dared to pun in May 1898 when the Spanish American War and Admiral Dewey were making headlines, "We didn't DEWEY a thing with our vanilla but make good soda water." A competitor, Stiles Drugs on the corner of Cottage and Cedar (Louisiana and Third) used the muscles of young Clark Bassett to crank the home-made ice cream; and advertised a double roll of wallpaper for 2 cents. At this point in my research I was close enough to the present to begin interviewing people here in town who remembered those turn-of-the-century stores.
Hester Laurie Hansen was Wisconsin's first woman pharmacist and still lives in Sturgeon Bay (Bay Shore drive).
A friend hearing that I was interested in talking with pharmacists about their experiences in this area in the past suggested that I visit Hester Hansen. What a delightful surprise to learn that another woman pharmacist had practiced here as long ago as the early 1900's.
On a golden autumn afternoon I found myself being welcomed by a small, warm, motherly woman whose youthful appearance and vitality gave the lie to her 91 years in Door county. It didn't seem possible that she could be the oldest woman pharmacist in Wisconsin and perhaps even in the U.S.
She chuckled as she recalled that a woman pharmacist was looked upon with skepticism then as now. But even her own mother had only considered her desire to become a pharmacist as just somewhat more "ladylike" than becoming a nurse, because that latter job might have required her to "give some man a bath!"
So Hester had begun her career at Stiles drugstore. Mr. Stiles and coworker Clark Bassett were sure she would never be able to pass the complicated examinations required for registration as a pharmacist although she was perfectly capable of working nearly eleven hours daily, seven days a week.
Her tasks included dusting, cleaning, malting sodas and waiting on customers. Even the sugar cones for ice-cream were made by hand on a kind of waffle iron which she soon became adept at using.
She quietly began learning the pharmaceutical art of rolling pills and suppositories, mixing powders, blending emulsions and ointments, syrups and elixirs; while studying every spare moment Materia Medics, Mathematics, Pharmacology and all the sciences she would need to understand before qualifying for licensure. In 1907, much to the amazement of her male peers, she passed all the exams and was registered.
Her description of Stiles drugstore (one of four drugstores in operation then) matched my description and recollection of earlier stores with its elegant solid oak fixtures and long soda fountain. We compared our experiences and discovered that we had many similar encounters, some with chauvinist men and more with women who were often relieved to be able to discuss their personal medical problems with another understanding woman.
But most of the products that Hester handled were worlds apart from today. I shuddered as I thought of that attractive young lady dressed in her proper long black skirt and crisp white blouse with starched cuffs, reaching into a glass jar of wriggling juicy leeches. These were a staple item used to reduce the swelling of black eyes and for bleeding, still an acceptable medical procedure. Swamp Root, Wahoo, Orris Root, Blue Cohosh — these were in demand then.
As I left the sturdy handsome stone house by the bay I glanced up at the date 1870 which had been engraved over the door by Mrs. Hansen's grandfather, Robert Laurie, when he built his home. Once again history had come alive for me.
Woerfel's drugstore was another early 20th century establishment and I was again fortunate to be able to find a link. I learned that Adolph Woerfel had also started out it Stiles in 1895.
His daughter Winifred checked through his old journals and recalled reminiscing about those days when Stiles owned two stores. Adolph managed the second store on the west side across the Bay. His fiancee Agnes (who later became Mrs. Woerfel) remembers spending many an anxious hour worrying about Adolph as he rowed across the sometimes turbulent water or walked across the precarious ice.
INTERIOR VIEW OF STILES & CO'S. DRUG STORE.
Though the bridge was now built he probably preferred this "shortcut" to work. Later the far-seeing Adolph studied Optometry and added an Optometry Department to this store which he now owned and was known as Woerfel's Drugstore.
His daughter wryly recalled helping him fill the heavy gallon jars of fluidextracts and tinctures still so commonly used in their youth. She spent many a summer morning putting up a special concoction of fly-spray for which Woerfel's was also renowned.
Enterprise and hard work were requirements of a pharmacist then as now. A nice blend of scientist and psychologist are still qualities also essential. That much has not changed. But the friendly quiet atmosphere of those old stores made them especially wonderful places to patronize. I suppose the faster pace of our world makes it impossible to return to that kind of establishment but I still wish a drugstore sold homemade ice cream and barley sticks a penny apiece.
Courtesy of the Door County Library Newspaper Archive
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