Louis Greengard was an
old-school druggist who didn't believe in cluttering his store with
hardware and beauty parlor paraphernalia. He stuck to the
prescription business, regarding his chosen work as a noble
profession.
From 1918 to
1924, Greengard had a drugstore at Pershing and DeBaliviere, in the
Bristol Hotel Building. One of his employees was Morris Glaser, who
worked for Greengard as a delivery boy.
Morris
Glaser, 1921
Louis Greengard's Drugstore
Morris Glaser was born in St.
Louis on January 30, 1904. He lived on North Garrison Avenue with
his parents, his five brothers and one sister. After graduating from
Central High School, Glaser attended the St. Louis College of
Pharmacy ― and worked part-time at Louis Greengard's drugstore.
After graduating as a pharmacist, Glaser
decided to open his own drugstore. To help him get started,
Greengard allowed his 24-year-old former employee to take one item
out of everything on his shelves, provided there were three or more
of each item.
Morris
Glaser opened his drugstore at the southwest corner of Clayton and
Big Bend on October 1, 1924. But unlike his mentor, Glaser did not
stick to just the prescription business. Like most drugstores of the
era, he also offered his customers a soda fountain.
* *
* * *
The soda fountain, a nineteenth-century American
innovation, was an apparatus for dispensing what was
commonly called soda water. This artificially carbonated beverage
was invented in Europe during the eighteenth century and
sold as an unflavored tonic. But American ingenuity transformed soda
water into an epicurean delight. Sweet flavored drinks and complex
concoctions made with ice cream and other ingredients eclipsed the
basic European product.
The soda fountain was a godsend for pharmacists.
With department stores cutting their retail trade, and the
popularity of patent medicines eroding their prescription business,
pharmacists needed a money-making sideline. The fountain provided
it. Druggists had the knowledge and ingredients for making soda
water, and tradition linked the beverage to the pharmacy. Although
competition arose from confectionery shops and eateries, the
fountain was recognized by the public as peculiar to the druggist,
and there were few drugstores without a soda apparatus of some kind.
The popularity of the soda fountain in St.
Louis at the end of the nineteenth century was chronicled in an April 19, 1888 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
article.
Some one hundred and
fifty fountains of various degrees of splendor cater to the dry
palates of St. Louisans, and twice that many youths turn the
taps.
There
must be a big profit in their manufacture, for they range in
price all the way from $500 to $6,000, and there are not a few
in St. Louis that represent an outlay approximating the
last-named figure. They are mostly of marble, embellished in
some instances with carved and costly wood, and are models of
ingenious mechanism. Those of recent construction are provided
with individual receptacles for the syrups, made of glass and
easily removed for cleansing.
Some 75,000 glasses of soda water is
the amount of soft drink sold on an average hot day in St.
Louis, and in well-managed establishments the clear profit on
sales is 100 per cent.
The milkshake has had a great run
this year. Milk, shaved ice, flavoring and agitation are all
that is necessary to its production and it is popular with all
classes. One exploded on Washington avenue the other day and
spoiled a lady's dress, but as a rule the drink is
non-explosive. Ice cream soda has been making fearful inroads on
the purses of fair ones, and the girl with the dime-saving craze
must hunt up a young man or go unsatisfied. But the populace
demands a drink for a nickel, and the demand has been granted,
some fountain owners going so far as to throw in a dash of ice
cream with each goblet.
Unidentified St. Louis Drugstore Soda Fountain
By the 1890s, large soda fountains stocked from
fifty to one hundred flavored syrups and sold 1,000 glasses
of soda water on a good day. Mixing syrups with carbonated water,
ice cream, eggs and other ingredients, the druggist created an
extensive selection of offerings available only at his store.
An article in the May 25, 1903 St. Louis
Republic detailed some of the concoctions offered at St. Louis
drugstores.
A dazzling array of
summer drinks are being introduced at the soda fountain.
So many new drinks have been placed
on the fountain man's calendar that it is hard for the average
customer to keep abreast of the times, speaking from the liquid
standpoint.
In
this age of competition the smart druggists and confectioners
bend every effort to get something that will be just a little
bit newer than anything else on the market.
That is why the customer at the soda
fountain is sometimes bewildered. So many drinks, so many
combinations, and so many new names, that he doesn't know which
to select.
J.
M. Barde, the fountain man at Judge & Dolph's, is a professor in
the school of soft drinks. He has an array of new soda
concoctions that is bewildering.
Fruit Frappe is one
of the smartest discoveries in the soda fountain line. It is
what is called a fluffy drink. When served the foam extends at
least two inches above the rim of the glass, and it is thick.
Crushed strawberries, raspberries, pineapple, regular cream and
ice cream are the ingredients, and Barde says that it is one of
the most fascinating drinks on the market.
The Vineyard Flip is another. It is
made of grape juice, egg, vanilla syrup and an ounce of ice
cream.
Very
often it is the name that attracts attention to a soda fountain
drink. Among the titles are Society Flip, Angle Punch, Orange
Mist, Creemade, Mint Julep Phosphate, Egg de Violette and Golfo.
But, attractive as the fancy drinks
are, the old-fashioned article, ice cream soda, still wins by a
large majority ― so the fountain man says.
By the turn of the twentieth
century, the fountain had surpassed its original function. It was
still a soda water dispensing apparatus, but it was also a site for
fulfilling a social need. Friends and families gathered to see and
be seen, to drink and converse.
Fountains were besieged after theatre
performances and shopping hours. Pleasant outings in a horse drawn
carriage ended with a stop for soda water. The fountain was also
essential in courting and a mecca for flirtatious young ladies. When
courting couples went out, their destination was a fountain.
In the 1910s, many druggists began offering light lunches along with fountain drinks.
Ice cream and fountain creations were invariably cold and sold only
in hot weather. Each fall, drugstore owners were resigned to
mothballing their soda fountains until the warm weather returned,
losing an important revenue stream. Beginning with simple
sandwiches, soups and desserts, drugstores were able to keep their
fountains open during the winter.
Unidentified St. Louis Drugstore Soda Fountain
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* * *
When Morris Glaser opened his drugstore at
Clayton and Big Bend in October of 1924, he saw a landscape very
different from the one that would soon develop at the intersection.
The iconic Phillips 66 station across the street would not open
until September of 1930. The Parkmoor restaurant at the northeast
corner would not open until July of 1931.
Normally renting for $125 per month, Glaser got
a concession from the building owner in the form of 6 months free
rent and a rate of $65 per month thereafter. This, he said, was
because the owner felt the need for a drugstore in the area.
The county's dirt roads, which kept customers
away in bad weather, led Glaser to start a delivery service.
Clayton Road then was
a pretty bumpy stretch and there were deep ravines on both sides
of it. You took your life in your hands when you tried to travel
it when it was covered with snow, sleet and ice. Big Bend was
macadammed, but you'd hardly call it pavement. Big Bend between
Clayton and Fontbonne College was impassable after rain.
Doctors hesitated to make calls in
the area for fear they'd get lost. Many a time my brother Sam,
who started with me as a delivery boy, and myself would meet
doctors at our store and escort them on their calls.
Grocery stores made very, very few
deliveries and many a mother left without any form of
transportation, depended on us for deliveries of much needed
milk. We'd go to the store, buy it and deliver it.
Glaser
Drugstore, Clayton & Big Bend, 1930s
By 1927, a second drugstore was
opened at Bellevue and Wise avenues in Richmond Heights. And by
1935, the Glaser Drug Company had additional stores at Delmar and
Midland, Hanley and Wydown, and Forsyth and Lindell.
Glaser
Drugstore, Hanley and Wydown
Morris Glaser tailored his
drugstores to fit the small neighborhoods where he put them and then
hired neighborhood people to run them. Each drugstore had a soda
fountain, which provided both revenue and visibility.
Boys, have you ever
wished that you could have as many ice cream sodas and sundaes
as you wanted during the summer? If you have, you will be
interested in this announcement.
The Glaser Drug Co., which operates
five drug stores here, will give five boys in the Star-Times
Soap Box Derby all the sodas and sundaes they want between
August 8 and September 3.
In addition to this, each of the five
Glaser stores will sponsor five boys in the derby from its
neighborhood, reimbursing the boys up to $3 each for material
purchased to build their racers.
Boys may visit any Glaser store to
learn how the five contestants will be selected. The stores are
at 7000 Clayton road, 1145 Bellevue avenue, 7337 Forsythe
boulevard, 7175 Delmar boulevard and 7645 Wydown avenue.
St. Louis Star-Times, Jul
19, 1935
Morris
Glaser (right) at Glaser Drugstore, Clayton & Big Bend,
1935
The six Glaser drug
stores in St. Louis County announced today that any child
bringing in a piece of old aluminum would receive a free ice
cream soda. They were immediately swamped with children who
brought in everything from thimbles to washtubs.
By 10 a. m. some children had had
three sodas, and were diligently looking for more aluminum.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jul 26,
1941
By November of 1949, there were
eleven Glaser's drugstores ― all with soda fountains ― in St. Louis
City and County.
St.
Louis Globe-Democrat, Nov 14, 1949
In April of 1954, Glaser's took over a
Walgreens space at Delmar and Kingsland in the University City Loop.
One day, Walgreens would return the favor.
Glaser
Drugs, Delmar & Kingsland, 1955
From the 1950s into the early 1960s, drugstore
soda fountains became the place for teens to hangout. An April 7,
1962 St. Louis Globe-Democrat article titled "Just Hanging
Around the Drugstore" detailed hangout activities.
Drinking: Cokes with
lemon, cherry or vanilla flavoring; malted milks and shakes;
soda pop and phosphates, particularly, cherry.
Eating: Hamburgers with pickles,
onions, relish, mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise and/or lettuce; ice
cream; candy; potato chips and pretzels.
Communicating: To hear who's going
steady with, broken off with, or about to go out with whom; to
get the dope on what's going on that night and who'll be there.
Flirting: Openly, covertly, moonily,
casually ― but inevitably and continually.
Memories of hanging out at Glaser's soda
fountains were vivid some sixty years later ― at least memories of
food and drink were vivid; no one confessed to gossiping or
flirting.
I remember the many
varieties of Coca Cola that they offered at the lunch counter.
Cherry, marshmallow, chocolate, lime etc. 5 cents.
I remember nickel Cokes served in a
cone shaped paper holder.
Often walked there for a Coke and
hamburger. Fond memory.
Would ride my bike from Price & Old
Bonhomme for an order of fries and a chocolate shake.
I think that may have been where I
had my first root beer float, also a Coke float not as good!
Many happy childhood memories of
Glaser's; sitting at the counter for a milkshake with Dad and my
sister was a treat!
Glaser's at N & S Road and Delmar was
a great place to get a fountain Coke with chocolate syrup ― the
Coke fizzed when the chocolate was put into the glass ― I can
still remember the taste of it.
Glaser's on Olive, great cherry Coke
& fries.
We
used to ride our bikes to the Glaser's on Olive/Olivette
Shopping Center. We would buy Fizzies and then order a glass of
water at the soda fountain because we had almost no money. I'll
never know why they put up with us.
If we're talking lunch, Glaser's Drug
in the Olivette shopping center made great burgers.
By the late 1960s, teenagers were being forced
out of drugstores. Their buying habits, never well developed, and
their occasional boisterousness, led some drugstore owners to
discourage their attendance.
With increased mobility provided by the
automobile, teens were happy to make drive-in restaurants their
meetings places.
Morris Glaser closed his last soda fountain in
1969.
Hamburger stands have
just taken away the business. We held on to the bitter end for
the front-end business that the fountains generated. We kept the
fountains as long as they carried themselves.
Youngsters were always a problem, but you overlooked it if you
were making money. We closed only one fountain due to the
problem of kids.
Morris Glaser died on November 21, 1972 at the
age of 68 ― some three years after the death of his last soda
fountain.
The last Glaser's drugstores closed on January
13, 1991 so that Walgreens, the buyer of the chains inventory, could
box up what used to fill the shelves and move it to nearby Walgreens
stores.
