Page 35 - 2019 August The Journal of Antiques and Collectibles
P. 35
Our Stock is Always Fresh: The Mooney-Barker Drugstore
Collection at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
by Carolyn Reno, Collections Manager and Assistant Director
I n 1985, the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History was allowed to go through Gathering the Trove
the contents of an old drugstore in Pettigrew (Madison County) Arkansas
When the time came to empty the store in the fall of 1985, Bob Besom
before it was razed to make way for a new post office building. The
(then Shiloh Museum’s director) spent weeks sorting through trash that the
Mooney–Barker Drugstore opened in 1917 and was owned and operated by Barker heirs had intended to throw away. He then attended an auction and
Arthur and Helen Mooney Barker, in partnership with Helen’s father, Dr. W. acquired more for the museum. This initial Mooney-Barker Collection
H. Mooney. Dr. Mooney kept hours out of an office off the back of the store. contained over 500 cataloged items. Over the next twenty years, Helen’s
Arthur was the store druggist, jeweler, and pawnbroker for those who needed a grandson, Wayne Martin, would donate more material. Shiloh Museum’s
little help in tough times. Helen managed the store’s soda fountain. The store Mooney-Barker Collection now consists of over 700 cataloged items and 13.5
closed in 1980 when Helen, who by then had run the store by herself for almost linear feet of archival material.
30 years, was no longer able to keep it The Mooney-Barker Collection
open. The doors were locked with all the contains drugstore goods of all kinds.
shelves still filled with merchandise. And There are bottles, bags, tins, and
given that the Barkers had never thrown boxes (most but not all are empty)
anything away, the store had become a for manufactured health remedies,
time capsule of goods spanning most of toiletries, candies, writing supplies,
the 20th Century. The Mooney-Barker shoe polish, razor blades, sewing
Drugstore was not unlike many other thread, jewelry, tobacco products, and
stores that used to serve the small towns more. These goods came from such
and rural communities that once crossed brands as Anacin, Shinola, Cardui,
the countryside. It was a rare chance for Carter’s, Horlick, Ramon, W. H. Bull,
the museum to document a way of life and Dr. Le Gear. Candy brands were
that has since passed out of existence. Mars, Hershey, Curtiss, Fleers, and
Tom’s. Griffin’s, a wholesale grocery
History of Pettigrew supplier out of Muskogee, Oklahoma
Pettigrew, Arkansas became a boom- supplied spices, peanut brittle, and
town during the booming timber industry orange juice. Arkansas products
in Northwest Arkansas that began in the Mooney-Barker Drugstore was renamed The Barker Store included Nelson’s Arkansas Port
1880s. The town was established in in the early 1930s after Dr. Mooney retired and turned the Wines out of Springdale. Customers
1897 at the end of the St. Louis and San business over to Arthur and Helen Barker. could buy film for cameras and bring it
Francisco (Frisco) Railroad branch line back to the drugstore to be shipped off
from Fayetteville (Washington County) east into the forests of southeastern to any number of finishing companies including Kodak, Elko, Metropolitan,
Madison County. Over the next few decades, virgin oak and other hardwood and Fox. Goods unique to certain eras are things like “talking machine needles”
timber was logged out and shipped by rail to other parts of the United States to for early record players, Queen City Horse Nails, and packets of World War II
be used as railroad ties, in furniture and barrel production, and even as
V-mail stationery. Unusual items include banjo strings and coffin hardware.
automobile floorboards. During the peak era, Pettigrew would bill itself as the There are also new and used books that the Barkers bought and sold in trade
“Hardwood Capital of the World.” with their customers. As Wayne Martin recalled, “In time the Mooney-Barker
Named for the man who platted the town, by 1912 Pettigrew had ten Store became a place where you could buy most anything, from axle grease to
sawmills in the area, general stores, hotels, restaurants, barbershops, blacksmiths, blasting powder.”
doctors, livery barns, a bank, a dentist, a millinery shop, a photo studio, and If it wasn’t on the shelf, a wanted item could be ordered from a catalog.
drugstores. Things went well until the 1930s. By then the timber had played Besides Sear’s, J. C. Penney’s, and Montgomery Ward catalogs, the drugstore
out. A drought and the Great Depression also dealt blows to the town’s
had catalogs for hardware, home goods, electrical goods, men’s suits, and tools
livelihood. In 1937 the Frisco pulled up its rail line. Pettigrew’s boom years from suppliers out of Little Rock, St. Louis, Memphis, and Kansas City. As
were over and the town and population went into decline. But through good remote as this town in the Arkansas Ozarks may have seemed at the time, it was
times and bad, the Mooney-Barker Drugstore served its customers. by no means cut off from the national marketplace.
Banana crate used The Mooney-Barker Drugstore
to ship a stalk of sold a wide variety of
bananas to the ammunition – shot, bullets,
Mooney-Barker and kegs of black powder.
Drugstore. Several
turned up during the At Right: Nursing in the Home
1986 auction of the book and advertising found in
drugstore’s contents. a crate from 1920 that was
never opened until 1986.
Fulbright Ice Cream produced in Fayetteville, Arkansas through the Fayetteville
Ice House, it was one of several businesses operated by Roberta Fulbright, a leading
business woman in the era. Her son, J. William “Bill” Fulbright was a U.S.
Senator for Arkansas for almost thirty years and founded the Fulbright Program, an
international exchange program for college students.
August 2019 33
Collection at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
by Carolyn Reno, Collections Manager and Assistant Director
I n 1985, the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History was allowed to go through Gathering the Trove
the contents of an old drugstore in Pettigrew (Madison County) Arkansas
When the time came to empty the store in the fall of 1985, Bob Besom
before it was razed to make way for a new post office building. The
(then Shiloh Museum’s director) spent weeks sorting through trash that the
Mooney–Barker Drugstore opened in 1917 and was owned and operated by Barker heirs had intended to throw away. He then attended an auction and
Arthur and Helen Mooney Barker, in partnership with Helen’s father, Dr. W. acquired more for the museum. This initial Mooney-Barker Collection
H. Mooney. Dr. Mooney kept hours out of an office off the back of the store. contained over 500 cataloged items. Over the next twenty years, Helen’s
Arthur was the store druggist, jeweler, and pawnbroker for those who needed a grandson, Wayne Martin, would donate more material. Shiloh Museum’s
little help in tough times. Helen managed the store’s soda fountain. The store Mooney-Barker Collection now consists of over 700 cataloged items and 13.5
closed in 1980 when Helen, who by then had run the store by herself for almost linear feet of archival material.
30 years, was no longer able to keep it The Mooney-Barker Collection
open. The doors were locked with all the contains drugstore goods of all kinds.
shelves still filled with merchandise. And There are bottles, bags, tins, and
given that the Barkers had never thrown boxes (most but not all are empty)
anything away, the store had become a for manufactured health remedies,
time capsule of goods spanning most of toiletries, candies, writing supplies,
the 20th Century. The Mooney-Barker shoe polish, razor blades, sewing
Drugstore was not unlike many other thread, jewelry, tobacco products, and
stores that used to serve the small towns more. These goods came from such
and rural communities that once crossed brands as Anacin, Shinola, Cardui,
the countryside. It was a rare chance for Carter’s, Horlick, Ramon, W. H. Bull,
the museum to document a way of life and Dr. Le Gear. Candy brands were
that has since passed out of existence. Mars, Hershey, Curtiss, Fleers, and
Tom’s. Griffin’s, a wholesale grocery
History of Pettigrew supplier out of Muskogee, Oklahoma
Pettigrew, Arkansas became a boom- supplied spices, peanut brittle, and
town during the booming timber industry orange juice. Arkansas products
in Northwest Arkansas that began in the Mooney-Barker Drugstore was renamed The Barker Store included Nelson’s Arkansas Port
1880s. The town was established in in the early 1930s after Dr. Mooney retired and turned the Wines out of Springdale. Customers
1897 at the end of the St. Louis and San business over to Arthur and Helen Barker. could buy film for cameras and bring it
Francisco (Frisco) Railroad branch line back to the drugstore to be shipped off
from Fayetteville (Washington County) east into the forests of southeastern to any number of finishing companies including Kodak, Elko, Metropolitan,
Madison County. Over the next few decades, virgin oak and other hardwood and Fox. Goods unique to certain eras are things like “talking machine needles”
timber was logged out and shipped by rail to other parts of the United States to for early record players, Queen City Horse Nails, and packets of World War II
be used as railroad ties, in furniture and barrel production, and even as
V-mail stationery. Unusual items include banjo strings and coffin hardware.
automobile floorboards. During the peak era, Pettigrew would bill itself as the There are also new and used books that the Barkers bought and sold in trade
“Hardwood Capital of the World.” with their customers. As Wayne Martin recalled, “In time the Mooney-Barker
Named for the man who platted the town, by 1912 Pettigrew had ten Store became a place where you could buy most anything, from axle grease to
sawmills in the area, general stores, hotels, restaurants, barbershops, blacksmiths, blasting powder.”
doctors, livery barns, a bank, a dentist, a millinery shop, a photo studio, and If it wasn’t on the shelf, a wanted item could be ordered from a catalog.
drugstores. Things went well until the 1930s. By then the timber had played Besides Sear’s, J. C. Penney’s, and Montgomery Ward catalogs, the drugstore
out. A drought and the Great Depression also dealt blows to the town’s
had catalogs for hardware, home goods, electrical goods, men’s suits, and tools
livelihood. In 1937 the Frisco pulled up its rail line. Pettigrew’s boom years from suppliers out of Little Rock, St. Louis, Memphis, and Kansas City. As
were over and the town and population went into decline. But through good remote as this town in the Arkansas Ozarks may have seemed at the time, it was
times and bad, the Mooney-Barker Drugstore served its customers. by no means cut off from the national marketplace.
Banana crate used The Mooney-Barker Drugstore
to ship a stalk of sold a wide variety of
bananas to the ammunition – shot, bullets,
Mooney-Barker and kegs of black powder.
Drugstore. Several
turned up during the At Right: Nursing in the Home
1986 auction of the book and advertising found in
drugstore’s contents. a crate from 1920 that was
never opened until 1986.
Fulbright Ice Cream produced in Fayetteville, Arkansas through the Fayetteville
Ice House, it was one of several businesses operated by Roberta Fulbright, a leading
business woman in the era. Her son, J. William “Bill” Fulbright was a U.S.
Senator for Arkansas for almost thirty years and founded the Fulbright Program, an
international exchange program for college students.
August 2019 33
