Board and Chorn Drugstore

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, if you'd asked A.J. Hunt back in 1895 what he was buildin' on this Mansfield lot, he'd have told you straight: a saloon.

And for three years, that's exactly what it was. But then the saloon closed, and what happened next is the kind of quiet transformation that a building makes when it's got a longer destiny in mind. Medical facilities moved in, one after another, and the address started down a road it would stay on for more than a century.

In 1898, two men named James A. Board and Ebenezer H. Chorn moved their pharmacy right here to this location, and they gave the place a name worth putting on a sign.

The Board and Chorn families kept that pharmacy running, various members from both families working the counter, all the way until 1925. Meanwhile, in 1911, C.A. Smith and sons purchased the building, and the Smith family's hold on it would turn out to be, as the marker says, nearly unbroken for one hundred years.

That is the kind of ownership that outlasts arguments, outlasts fashions, outlasts just about everything. Other pharmacists and drug stores came through and used the building across those years. Prominent local doctors kept offices in the back, which tells you something about the way a community organizes itself around a place it trusts.

What started as a saloon became something Mansfield depended on. For more than one hundred years, this site has provided medical services for the people of this town. A.J.

Hunt built a place to pour drinks. Turns out he built something a whole lot harder to close.

What the marker says

A.J. Hunt first opened a building at this site as a saloon in 1895. When the saloon closed three years later, the building became a series of medical facilities. In 1898, James A. Board and Ebenezer H. Chorn moved their pharmacy to this location. In 1911, C.A. Smith and sons purchased the building; the Smith family's ownership was nearly unbroken for 100 years. Various members of the Board and Chorn families operated the pharmacy until 1925. Later, other pharmacists and drug stores utilized the building. Prominent local doctors had offices in the back of the pharmacy. For more than one hundred years, the site has provided medical services for the people of Mansfield.