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Sloan's Drug Store
by Bob Jurgensen and Charly Mann
From 1948 until about 1974 Sloan's was Chapel Hill's corner drugstore. It sat at the corner of Franklin and Columbia where Spanky's is today. The business was owned and run by druggist Bill Sloan.
Sloan's had the closest soda fountain to Chapel Hill Junior and Senior High Schools, located where University Square is today. During the school year there was a steady stream of high school students getting fountain cokes at Sloan's. In 1962 they even sold top 45 rpm records from a small box on the counter. Bob Jurgensen tells a great story of one of Sloan's most unusual customers, Frisky, a wire haired terrier, who was a trained circus dog, adopted by Jo Bissell in the 1950's. Frisky was a rather independent dog who, while obedient to a point, would often walk off and roam the streets of Chapel Hill. Back then dogs roamed freely and no one ever really challenged them. Frisky loved ice cream and he knew where to find it. Sloan's, during the 1950s, operated an ice cream bar near the front of the store (later moved to the back in the 1960s) and back then, in the age of no air conditioning, the doors stood wide open with a ceiling fan running overhead to keep out the flies.
Frisky was a regular customer at Sloan's and would walk in and stand around until someone took mercy on him and gave him a small cup of vanilla. Then Frisky would prance back to his home on Rosemary Street (about a block and a half), waiting patiently for the traffic to stop at Rosemary and Columbia stop light, and cross with the green light to the other side, all the while with this small cup of ice cream firmly in his teeth's grip, having never taken even so much as a lick. Nonnie Bissell, who was Bob Jurgensen's grandmother, owned and operated Nonnie's Beauty Nook out of her home on the west side of Franklin Street across from where La Residence is today. Frisky would curl up in the front yard and eat the ice cream.
Frisky the former Circus Dog who was a regular customer of Sloan's Drug Store in Chapel Hill during the 1950s
The first of every month Nonnie would head down to pay Bill Sloan her monthly tab for medications and other drug store items she would have had delivered to her home throughout the month. One time when Bob was five he went with his grandmother to Sloan's when she paid her bill. That day she got very upset because Mr. Sloan had charged her for several 5 cent ice creams Frisky had "bought". Five cents was a lot of money to Nonnie in those days, and there were quite a few charges for ice cream on the bill. Fortunately Bill Sloan had a sense of humor and removed the charges from her bill, but you can bet Frisky heard about it later that evening.
Comments:
Sue W
6:16 PM Tue 11/24/2009
I don't remember Frisky ,( I wish I did), but I sure remember Sloan's after school. Cokes & friends. Great story Charly.
Brad H
10:01 AM Tue 11/24/2009
I remember Sloan's very well. It was a wonderful drug store. Do you know what became of Bill Sloan's son Lee Sloan? He was a classmate of mine.
Nora Gaskin Esthimer
4:34 PM Sun 11/22/2009
Great story--fun stuff. I like remembering Sloan's too. The Sloans would always let us kids use their phone when it was time to call home for a ride. And one of them gave my dad a great stock tip--to buy what became CCB and is not SunTrust. Thanks, Joe and Bill!
Bob Jurgensen
2:35 PM Sun 11/22/2009
Great job on this article Charly - Frisky was a well known "character" on Franklin St in those days - and wandered around town all the time. In those days there were two things in CH you didn't complain about:
Trees and dogs.
No one ever dared to even suggest cutting down a tree, at least not on Franklin St and dogs ran around like people back then. Frisky roamed freely, like cats frequently do, and every one knew him and that he could do tricks that almost no common dog could do... I spent hours on end with Frisky as a youngster and he was truly amazing. He gave my grandmother a fit though because he pretty much did as he pleased, but he always came home.
I love reading your articles about the "old" Chapel Hill and remember so many of the events you decribe and I thank you for sharing this story about Sloan's and Frisky - hopefully someone else will even perhaps remember Friskly and comment - I would love to hear from anyone who remembers this special little dog.
Denny Phillips
2:24 PM Sun 11/22/2009
Thanks for bringing back a touch of Sloan's. The story of Frisky is classic. A time when dogs roamed free. Those were the days!
Chapel Hill is located on a hill whose only distinguishing feature in the 18th century was a small chapel on top called New Hope Chapel. This church was built in 1752 and is currently the location of The Carolina Inn. The town was founded in 1819, and chartered in 1851.
What is it that binds us to this place as to no other? It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls. or the crisp October nights. No, our love for this place is based upon the fact that it is as it was meant to be, The University of the People.
-- Charles Kuralt
Dark Side of the Hill -- Pink Floyd, the creators of the most popular album in history, Dark Side of the Moon, took the second half of their name from Floyd Council, a Chapel Hill native, and great blues singer and guitarist. He once belonged to a group called "The Chapel Hillbillies".
Check out Charly Mann's other website:
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
Oklahoma Birds and Butterflies
http://oklahomabirdsandbutterflies.com
There would probably be no Chapel Hill if the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees in 1793 had not chosen land across from New Hope Chapel for the location of the university. By 1800 there were about 100 people living in thirty houses surrounding the campus.
The University North Carolina's first student was Hinton James, who enrolled in February, 1795. There is now a dormitory on the campus named in his honor.
The University of North Carolina was closed from 1870 to 1875 because of lack of state funding.
William Ackland left his art collection and $1.25 million to Duke University in 1940 on the condition that he would be buried in the art museum that the University was to build with his bequest. Duke rejected this condition even though members of the Duke Family are buried in Duke Chapel. What followed was a long and acrimonious legal battle between Ackland relatives who now wanted the inheritance, Rollins College, and the University of North Carolina, each attempting to receive the funds. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and in 1949 UNC was awarded the money for the museum. Ackland is buried near the museum's entrance. When the museum first opened, in the early sixties, there were rumors that his remains were leaking out of the mausoleum.
The official name of the Arboretum on the University of North Carolina campus is the Coker Arboretum. It is named after Dr. William Cocker, the University's first botany professor. It occupies a little more than five acres. It was founded in 1903.
Chapel Hill's main street has always been called Franklin Street. It was named after Benjamin Franklin in the early 1790s.
Chapel Hill High School and Chapel Hill Junior High were on Franklin Street in the same location as University Square until the mid 1960s.
The Colonial Drug Store at 450 West Franklin Street was owned and operated by John Carswell. It was famous for a fresh-squeezed carbonated orange beverage called a "Big O". In the early 1970s, I managed the Record and Tape Center next door, and must have had over 100 of those drinks. The Colonial Drug Store closed in 1996.
Sutton's Drugstore, which opened in 1923, has one of the last soda fountains in the South. It is one of the few businesses remaining on Franklin Street that was in operation when I was growing up in the 1950s.
Future President Gerald Ford lived in Chapel Hill twice. First when he was 24, in 1938, he took a law couse in summer school at UNC. He lived in the Carr Building, which was a law school dormitory. At the same time, Richard Nixon, the man he served under as Vice President, was attending law school at Duke. In 1942, Ford returned to Chapel Hill to attend the U.S. Navy's Pre-Flight School training program. He lived in a rental house on Hidden Hills Drive.
In addition to Sloan's and Sutton's drug store, Franklin Street also had Eubank's Drug Store, There was a huge free scale sitting on the floor right in the front of the store, and we used to stand on it to weigh ourselves. Eubanks also had the old-fashioned (even in the 1950's) tall glass-fronted domed counters.