MUSEUM TOUR STOP
SKAGGS BUILDING, FIRST FLOOR LOBBY
Located near the elevator on the first floor of the main lobby, this first stop takes you back more than 100 years ago, as you enter a recreation of a territorial-era pharmacy, complete with a massive, mirrored frontispiece surrounded by stained glass and ornate woodwork. A pharmacist would work in privacy behind the mirror, compounding medications and preparing prescriptions, all the while peeking out through the clear glass sides of the frontispiece to keep an eye on the customers.
The frontispiece was built around 1870 in Tennessee for use in a drug store. When the store closed, the structure was sold and relocated to Columbus, Mexico, near the border. Pancho Villa and his men attacked the town on March 9, 1916, and the town vacated. The frontispiece eventually made its way to the Tombstone Drug Store in Arizona and was later donated to the museum.
The walls surrounding the territorial pharmacy display feature embossed glass bottles dating from the 1880s to 1920s. These bottles are a unique record of the local pharmacies from that time and were donated by the owner of the Town and Country drug store in Tucson, William Reinhardt, an avid bottle collector. His dedication to pharmacy history resulted in a series of bottles collected from pharmacies in Tucson, Phoenix, and other Arizona towns, as well as California and elsewhere in the west.
Another common item found in pharmacies around the turn of the 20th century was a box of homeopathic medicines such as the Humphrey’s Specifics in the display case window opposite the label maker. A small amount of substance was used to treat a different malady. Customers ordered by a number printed on the display boxes. The collection of 48-star flags also in this exhibit commemorates Arizona becoming the 48th state of the Union in 1912.
Most medications today are sold as premanufactured pills, but prescriptions during territorial days were often compounded from plant materials. Around the back of the pharmacist’s window are a plant press for producing extracts, a drug-grinding mill, a pill press, a check-writer, and a wrapping paper dispenser. You will also notice a display case with a device to make and cut pills, as well as a cork press, used to squeeze corks and place on jars to form a tight seal.
The lobby’s north wall boasts the Schering Collection of mortars and pestles. These pieces were given out almost every year from 1963 to 2009 as promotional items from the Schering Corporation. When pharmacists purchased a given year’s store display from the company, Schering would send out the corresponding mortar and pestle as a thank you gift. Depending on their production cost, Schering gave out between 3,000 and 10,000 in a year.
Ultimately, the production of these mortars and pestles ceased in 2009, when the company was purchased by Merck. In total there are 44 mortars and pestles in the main series, and the Coit Museum of Pharmacy & Health Sciences has 42. These have become highly sought after by collectors.