Marking
the history of Kemper Drug reinforces the significance of this landmark in Elk
River. This oral history collected from
Bob Kemper provides new insight into the building and also contributes
understanding to the business history of the city.
When I bought the
store it was the only drugstore in town; and it remained the only drugstore for
quite a while. But, of course,
eventually, all the grocery stores had pharmacies in them. So, it’s quite a different picture, although
Kemper Drug is still there.
My dad had a
drugstore in Perham. My older brother is
also a pharmacist. So, we grew up in the
drugstore. I worked in several stores
after that. And then, of course, the war
came on; I went and joined the navy.
Then I came back and bought the store in Elk River. My partner was my brother. We also had the Perham drugstore. Eventually, we separated and I owned the Elk
River store and he, the Perham store.
Well, my dad had
our drugstore in Perham, and when I graduated from high school, he asked me—I
think the way he worded it—he said, “What do you expect now to make the world a
better place to live in?” I didn’t have
an answer to that, so he said, until you know what you’re going to do, you can
come to work for me. So, I worked in the
drugstore in Perham for a year. And
then, in the meantime, my father died and my mother died, and my brother and I
were partners then and we wanted another store, so we bought a store in Elk
River.
When I came here,
I was the only drugstore in town; but a situation existed that was kind of
bad. All the doctors had their own
dispensaries, so when you went to the doctor and you needed some pill, he’d get
them. He didn’t write a
prescription. Well, I kept working on
it. I thought eventually I’ll get the
guys talked in to do thing the way they ought to. And they could practice medicine and send the
people to the drugstore. But I had a
pretty good business even without the prescriptions. We had a soda fountain. We were sitting on the corner. Lot of cars by and traffic, and so we had a
pretty good business without that. But I
wanted to get the prescription business a little better. Eventually it happened.
 |
Kemper Drug after fire destroyed the
building in January 1960
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Of course, about
the fire: it was a cold, very cold day (January 6, 1960) a bitter cold day. And we had opened the store and we had the
hotel upstairs, too. I owned that,
too. So, one of the clerks came to me
and said, “Gee, there’s some smoke coming up on the side of the store
here.” And I went over there, and then I
went down the basement. Mac Hamlet, who
took care of my store, the heating and whatnot, said the furnace acted up. He had one of those fireman feeders. He overdid it but says “I can fix it.” So, I said, okay and I went back up to the
store and everything was okay. And then
that clerk came back again and said, “there’s smoke coming up over there.” So, I went down there and by that time, there
was fire in the ceiling in the basement and Mac Hamlet was still there, and I
said, “I guess we better get out of here.”
And then I had to go back to the hotel to be sure there weren’t any
people there.
So, at any rate,
it was a big day, and cold, and we had fire departments from Monticello and
Anoka. A lot of people working on that
fire, and this is a bitter cold day.
It was a terrific
blow. And, I didn’t know quite what to
do. I had several people helping me, had
some ideas I should find a place in town the would rent. And people sent me back to Minneapolis to get
some stock. I went back to the wholesale
drug company and told them what happened; and they were all excited.
Of course, now we
lost the hotel upstairs, which was really not such a bad deal. I didn’t like the hotel business. So, I didn’t have that big building anymore;
and I built a nice new building. It
almost, you might say, worked out pretty good for me.
Bob
Kemper rebuilt and the building standing on the corner of Highway 10 and
Jackson Street remains a significant landmark to the city.
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