A quick dip into the inbox today, to talk about a store of the past we’ve only mentioned in passing before.
This letter comes from Shirley Pilkerton of the Manchester area. She writes, “Unless I missed it, I saw no mention of one great place that was on the corner of Contenental Square. It is Peoples Drug Store. There was also one at the corner of Beaver St and W Market St across from Jacks Department Store. I worked at the one on the square in 1954 and 1955 while I was going to William Penn Senior High. The manager was Mr Moore and he was also the pharmacist. There was a soda fountain/snack bar where I was employed. There were great soup and sandwiches as well as the best sundaes and root beer floats that you could find. Coffee was 10 cents a cup. I earned 67 cents an hour as part time help!!! It was a great part of my early youth.”
June Lloyd had talked on her Universal York blog about this store last year. (The photo above is from her post!)
My name is Joan and I'm a lifelong Yorker. Throughout high school and college, I swore I was getting out of here as soon as possible. Now, a few years later, I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be. I love my town. And, as a local editor, I hear every day how much you love your towns, too. So please, connect with me and let's share what makes life in York County great. I'm here to help you enjoy this place as much as I do!
This picture sure does bring back great memories!!! Going in there sitting at the soda fountain and getting drinks!!!
People’s Drug!! I worked for People’s for 12 years, starting in 1976 (down here in Virginia, alas, not in York). Minimum wage in ’76 was $2.30 an hour. Hershey bars were, I think, 15 cents. You could buy a six pack of the big bottles of Coke on sale for 99 cents. And during Back To School season, metal lunchboxes with Thermoses were around $2 or $3. Why didn’t I buy one of each back then? They’d be worth a small fortune now! LOL! And the soda fountain…best cheeseburgers and milkshakes in town. Good, good memories!
I don’t remember the People’s Drug Store at the corner of West Market and Beaver Streets but I do remember The People’s Drug Store on the southwest corner of Continental Square in the first floor of the Colonial Hotel. I loved their old fashioned soda fountain. Back in the late 1950′s and very early 1960′s I was a member of Boy Scout troop #132 of the First Moravian Church at 39 North Duke Street. On Easter Eve the boy scouts camped out at the church so they could get up real early and go to Prospect Hill Cemetery to direct cars to the Easter Sunrise Services. Of course we had fun sleeping in the Fellowship Hall or not sleeping as was often the case. In those days People’s on the Square was open all night. Well, about 10 or 11 0′clock that night we decided to walk down to the drug store and have a late night snack at the old soda fountain. I ordered the old fashioned cherry coke–the one made from real cherry syrup and some of my friends ordered ice cream sodas. The cherry cokes of today are nothing like those cherry cokes at a real soda fountain. Sometimes I would shop for cards in the drug store – however, later I believe a separate Hallmrk Card shop opened in the northern part of the same building. It was comforting having a drug store open all night right in the city of the city. It is such a shame that the behavior of some of the citizens of York prevent that type of business from operating 24 hours anymore.