Stephenville Drug Stores

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about this corner in Stephenville. Now, some corners just sit there. Collect a stoplight, maybe a coffee shop, and that's the end of it.

But the corner of Washington and Belknap streets in Stephenville, Erath County, has a little more to say for itself. For nearly a century, from 1899 all the way to 1994, that corner was home to a drug store. Not the same one, mind you.

A whole procession of them, each one passing the keys to the next. The kind of place that, in an early Texas town, wasn't just convenient. It was essential.

You needed it the way a town needs a heartbeat. Now, before any of that pharmacy history could get started, somebody had to build the building. That somebody was F.

A. Schnabel. In October of 1897, Schnabel contracted to have the place constructed, and here's the detail worth savoring: he hauled the brick himself, all the way from the new brick plant over in nearby Thurber.

Schnabel set up his drug store and ran it himself until 1905, when he sold the business to a man named Frank S. White. And from there, that corner became a kind of relay race.

Swan Richardson took over after White. Then came Daniel and Louise D'Arcy. Then Bill Riddick.

Then John Baker. And finally, at the end of the line, Eckerd Drug Company. Nearly a hundred years of remedies, transactions, and townsfolk comin' through that door.

The building that Schnabel's brick built outlasted them all.

What the marker says

Local drug stores were an important and essential part of the economy and well-being of early Texas towns. This site at the corner of Washington and Belknap streets served as the location of a series of Stephenville drug stores from 1899 until 1994. The original proprietor was F. A. Schnabel, who contracted for this building to be built in October 1897, and hauled the brick for the building from the new brick plant in nearby Thurber. Schnabel operated the business until 1905, when he sold it to Frank S. White. Subsequent owners of the pharmacy were Swan Richardson, Daniel and Louise D'Arcy, Bill Riddick, John Baker, and finally, Eckerd Drug Company. (2009)