A look at Chico through a drugstore
The ordinance passed by Butte County supervisors was stark: “All persons within Butte
County must wear masks. … Failure to comply with the law is punishable by a fine of $50 or imprisonment for 30 days, or by both.” It was Nov. 17, 1918 and the Spanish Flu had hit hard. That year, at least 104 Chicoans died of the disease.
Ironically, there was a bright side. Early in 1919 a newspaper account noted business at drug stores was booming: “Every druggist in Chico is riding along on a wave of prosperity that reached its crest last November and has not subsided yet.”
Among the eight or so pharmacies operating in Chico at the time was Bartlett’s, at 330 Broadway. Chicoan Kathleen Gabriel, who teaches at Chico State and has published on how to best serve underrepresented students, focuses on this downtown landmark to trace “Chico History: 1905-1971 Featuring The Bartlett Drug Company” ($55 in paperback from Memoir Books; available on Amazon). The book is beautifully designed, replete with hundreds of historical photographs, and it is meticulously researched.
Gabriel has deep roots in the community. “My paternal grandparents came to the Chico area around 1909,” she writes, “and in 1921 their 3-year-old daughter, Janette Ruth Martin, contracted catarrhal enteritis. Without antibiotics, she, like many other children with this and similar types of diseases, did not have much of a chance for survival. … She died in my grandmother’s arms on May 21, 1921.”
The pharmacy began as the Waste (“pronounced Wass-tee”) Drug Company in 1905, became the Smith Drug Company and then, in 1909, the Bartlett Drug Company, operated by Raymond Schaller from 1944 until his death in 1971, when the business closed.
Gabriel’s essential account immerses readers in Chico history, including the development of Enloe
Sanatorium in Paradise, Sycamore Pool, Chico High and much more. But it also gives a lot of love to advertisements (Palmolive Olive Oil shampoo, Gleem Toothpaste or Little Liver Granules, anyone?), the new “penny scale,” the introduction of the rotary phone (in 1953 “Chico Goes Dial … New numbers will include the prefix Fireside 2”), competing pharmacies and candy stores, and prescription slips.
My prescription: Get the book.
Dan Barnett teaches philosophy at Butte College. Send review requests to dbarnett99@ me.com. Columns archived at https://dielbee.blogspot. com