Grubbs Grocery and Grubbs Drug Store
Frank and Ida L. (Gable) Grubbs operated a grocery store on the SE corner of Main and Washington streets from 1890 to 1908. Two of their children Lloyd and Vera were born there while the family lived above the store. Around 1908 they moved the grocery business further south in the same block, the 2nd building south of the alley. Here they operated Grubbs & Strait Groceries until 1918. Then from 1918 until 1928 they operated Grubbs & Son Groceries. Then the depression hit and the store was lost to creditors.
Grubbs & Son Grocery c.1925 l-r: Marion Grubbs, Vernon Grubbs, Ruth (Fairbanks) Grubbs and husband Lloyd Grubbs.
Lloyd and Ruth Grubbs had left for work in Chicago during the depression, but returned to Center Point in 1946. They purchased the drug store located on the west side of Main Street Between Washington and State streets from John McKee. John had purchased the store a couple of years earlier from Charles Yaeger, a pharmacist. Charles had built and operated the store in the early 1900’s.
The Grubbs had acquired an extensive inventory. The back room held rows of bottles with ground glass stoppers, half-filled with powders and liquids. Small drawers contained smelly asafetida amulets worn to repel disease. There was a tin of finely powdered snuff, the sort ladies carried in small elegant boxes. Shelves contained patent medicines for many ailments including Lydia Pinkham’s Black Draught and Carter’s Little Liver Pills.
Ruth and Lloyd Grubbs inside Grubbs Drug Store 1946-1952
Because Lloyd was not a pharmacist, he eventually disposed of the medicinal powders and liquids. He continued to make “Cornhusker’s Lotion”, a thick gooey concoction that bubbled as it worked, from an old Yaeger formula. Gifts, greeting cards, cosmetics, cigarettes, candies, comics, paperback books and school supplies were added to the inventory.
The small green marble counter and wire ice cream chairs were replaced in 1947 with an enlarged and modernized soda fountain. The soda fountain was a popular spot for coffee breaks and waiting for rides home. After school, soda jerks were kept busy making five-cent fountain cokes. On weekly Band Concert nights, the drug store was a popular meeting spot.
Lloyd sold the business in 1952 and retired to go fishing with his brother. Subsequent drug stores in this building were Hronek Pharmacy, Harry & Mabel Hill Sundries, Chuck’s Sundries and Henderson Sundries.
--Patricia Grubbs Rand, Katherine Rand, Margaret Rand Weaver