If you're as old as I am, you may remember drugstore soda fountains in downtown Mooresville during the 1950s and 1960s. Which stores had them? Take my super fun quiz to find out!
Grandpa Billy Bob's Mooresville History Super Fun Quiz #7,
by Mooresville Public Library
Did you guess Brown's Rexall Drugstore or Hayes Pharmacy? Both had full-service soda fountains. Brown's was operating at least as long ago as the early 1940s at 13 East Main Street and was in business into the 1970s. In 1947, Gene Hayes took over for Cooper Drugstore (ca. 1906-1947) in the Cooper building at 6 West Main Street and continued to operate there until 1965.
Advertisement from the 1964 Mooresville High School
yearbook, Wagon Trails
(click photos to enlarge)
Advertisement from the 1963 Mooresville High School
yearbook, Wagon Trails
Advertisement from the 1962 Mooresville High School
yearbook, Wagon Trails
That's the owner's son, Butch Brown, in the advertisements above.
Photo of the South side of East Main Street
from the 1963 Mooresville High School
yearbook, Wagon Trails
Enlargement of the above photo shows Brown's Rexall Drugstore
between Western Auto and B. F. Jones' Department Store
Advertisement from the 1959 Mooresville High School
yearbook, Wagon Trails
Photo of the North side of West Main Street (cropped)
showing Hayes Pharmacy
from the 1959 Mooresville High School
yearbook, Wagon Trails
Advertisement from the 1958 Mooresville High School
yearbook, Wagon Trails
Another downtown establishment had a soda fountain/lunch counter, at least through the mid-1950s. Franklin Ice Cream Store opened in 1936 and operated at 16 South Indiana Street through circa 1955. Copeland Appliance Store, which operated next door at 18-20 South Indiana Street (1950-1974), extended into Franklin's building in 1956.
Advertisement from the 1956 Mooresville High School
yearbook, Wagon Trails
Copeland Appliance Store at 16-18-20 South Indiana Street
(circa 1970 photo)
Franklin Ice Cream Store listed in the 1954
Robinson's Mooresville City Directory
Franklin Ice Cream Store
Grand Opening Advertisement
Mooresville Times, June 18, 1936
Franklin Ice Cream Store Advertisement
Mooresville Times, November 6, 1944
Mooresville Historian Wanda Potts' article
about Franklin Ice Cream Store in the
"Mooresville Moments" feature
(Mooresville-Decatur Times, 1999)
There were, of course, many other businesses that served ice cream in Mooresville during the 1950s and 1960s--Dairy Queen and Kelly's Restaurant immediately spring to mind--but if you were hanging out in downtown Mooresville, especially if you were a teenager, you likely dropped in at the soda fountains at Brown Rexall, Hayes, or Franklin.
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