Town's historic drugstore opens its doors again

Tag : switch cabinets


With only dim rays of sunshine coming through the curtains, it'shard to see where the switch might be. For Book, it's a littlefuzzy, too, because of the recent macular degeneration of her eyes.But as she points to dark cabinets along the wall, she doesn't needperfect vision to tell where the tin-lined drawers are that wereused to store tobacco and cigars, or where the stairs used to be.The light switch was moved during some minor renovation work, butshe knows where everything else is.

That's because she used to live here, many years ago.

It was her great-great-grandfather, John France, who originallybuilt the drugstore in 1859. Her father, Glenn France, was thethird generation to be a pharmacist here, and he moved his familyto an apartment upstairs in the 1930s when Book was in secondgrade. She lived here until she graduated from high school with herparents and brother (also named John and now a retired two-stargeneral).

There is a slight musty smell when you first walk in the store, andthe narrow planks of the wood flooring are worn from years of wear,but there is still evidence of the drug store's former grandeur.

Black and gold marble lines the baseboards all around the store.The marble looks like Italian portoro, although Book says they havenot had an expert in to say for sure. The floor-to-ceilingapothecary cabinets look like mahogany, and the back bar has inlaysof stained glass in the doors.

As Book looks at the soda fountain, all in original and workingcondition, she breaks into a smile.

"I grew up behind that soda fountain," she says. "Istarted working here when I was tall enough to reach down to dipice cream. One time I fell in and bit my tongue. Dad had to comeget me and drag me out."

Saturday nights were busy, she says. The area across the street,now a gravel parking lot, would be full of horses and wagons underthe trees. The store would stay open until midnight serving sodas,malts, sundaes and banana splits to customers sitting at the marbletables and bentwood chairs. Several of the tables and chairs arestill here, and still with the gum someone placed on the undersidesyears ago.

"On Saturday nights, this was the place to come," Booksays. "Everybody came to the drugstore."

On May 24, France's Drug Store reopened as the Forest City DrugStore Museum. And it has become the place to come again. The casesthat held candy, watches, dolls and school supplies now have arotating display of antiques and memorabilia. In May, it was allkinds of things from the Forest City school, including banduniforms, photos and the old school bell. In July, it was changedto kitchen memorabilia, featuring all kinds of cookbooks andequipment not seen today, such as a wooden cabbage cutter formaking sauerkraut and a washboard and pail. New displays areplanned every few weeks.

"We are so small that we don't want people to come and say,'I've seen it,'" says Billie Jo Ripley, publisher of the localnewspaper, The Times Observer, and a member of the events committeethat organizes the displays.

And just like in years past, guests can enjoy ice cream sundaes andshakes from the soda fountain, sitting at the same tables andchairs. The ice cream is not the highly anticipated Franklin DoubleX flavor of the month as proclaimed in an old banner across thedoor, which used to arrive on a train from Kansas City packed indry ice. It comes in a truck now, usually from the Schwan's man,but the dollar cones and $2.50 sundaes, floats and malts tastegood, and the price is right.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, it was standing room only, withlines waiting out the door for a look around and a chance to relivethe experience of the soda fountain. The guest book was signed by147 people in this town with a population of less than 300. Andit's all been accomplished by donations from the community andvolunteers who organized the Riverbend Extension Company, anonprofit group that is working to strengthen and re-establish thetown.

"We wanted to call it the Forest City Extension Company afterthe company that started Forest City in 1857," says Peggy AnnEdwards, Forest City mayor. "But when we sent in the name, wefound it was still on the books."

The group has many plans in the works for the drugstore, includingadding a historical library, a park next door with a memorial walland renovating the apartment upstairs. It's been a boon to thecommunity, Ripley says, but it almost didn't happen. Some peoplefrom Nebraska were planning to buy the building and sell everythinginside.

"That's when the decision was made that we couldn't let thathappen," she says. "It would have been just another oldbuilding to fall down in Forest City."

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