Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
P. O. Box 3711
204 Broad Street
Martinsville, Virginia 24115
276-638-8801
Toll Free: 800-234-6575
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Tuesday, November 3, 2009
By MICKEY POWELL - Bulletin Staff Writer
Drugstores in Martinsville in the early 20th century were more than just a place to buy medicines.
Local historian Desmond Kendrick will discuss the history of the stores — including Wampler’s, Fagg’s, Paterson’s and Kearfott’s — and the role they played in community life during a public lecture at noon Wednesday at the New College Institute (NCI).
Basically, the stores served much the same purpose that large stores such as Walmart and Kmart do today.
“They were your main stores ... your little department stores” where people could buy a variety of items, from medicines to stationery to household items and even school textbooks, said Kendrick.
“You could buy a little of everything there,” he said, noting that department stores of the era focused mainly on selling clothing and fabric people could buy to make their own clothes, as was common then.
The stores also had soda fountains where people gathered to have lunch, and students dropped by for an after-school snack, Kendrick said, adding there were fewer restaurants then than there are now.
Kendrick said the stores began closing in the early to mid-1960s when chain drugstores such as Revco — now CVS — began opening locally. They were the victims of competition and changes in how people took care of their family and household needs, he said.
The lecture, part of NCI’s ongoing Non-Credit Lecture Series, will be held in the institute’s classroom building on Courthouse Square uptown. It is free, but anyone planning to attend is asked to call NCI Outreach Educator Steve Keyser at 403-5612 or e-mail him at skeyser@newcollegeinstitute.org by Wednesday so that enough space can be reserved to accommodate the crowd.
Keyser said Monday that approximately 40 people already had contacted him about their plans to attend. |
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