110520_GYS

42  GUIDE TO YELLOW SPR INGS  |  2020 – 2021 By CAROL SIMMONS For nearly a century, villagers have been filling their prescriptions at the same downtown location — on the northeast corner of Glen Street and Xenia Avenue — stopping in on the ground floor of a stately building erected by the local Odd Fellows Lodge in 1894. From “remedies” to modern medications, from a popular soda fountain to canned soft drinks, from toiletries to candy treats, the pharmacy has served a variety of local needs over the years. The legacy of Yellow Springs’ corner pharmacy began with A.C. Erbaugh, a druggist in Dayton for 30 years who came to Yellow Springs in May 1924 to buy A corner pharmacy for nearly 100 years PHOTO: YS NEWS ARCHIVE This undated photo from the News archive, likely taken in the late 1960s or early ’70s, shows Carl and Bud Johnson at work filling prescriptions at the local pharmacy, then called Erbaugh and Johnson’s, now Benzer Pharmacy. what was then the Whit- taker Drug Store, descen- dant of a long line of drug stores that had already served Yellow Springs for a half century. Owned by Calvin Whittaker, it was located where Glen Garden Gifts is now. Within a few years of operation, Erbaugh and his wife were joined in the store by their son, William, who obtained his own pharmacy degree in 1929. The store, renamed Erbaugh Drug Store, then moved down the street to its longtime corner location that same year. William, henceforth affec - tionately known in town as “Doc,” soon assumed leadership of the enterprise from his parents, continuing in that role until the 1950s. According to past News accounts, Doc remodeled the store by putting in a soda fountain and repositioning the front door at the side corner, where it remains. He was “remembered as being a very thin, short, wiry sort of man who dispensed drugs based on his own education, and who ‘went 90 miles an hour’ while working at his job.” Thinking about his even- tual retirement, Erbaugh brought fellow pharmacist Albert “Bud” Johnson into the business in 1951, and the name expanded to Erbaugh and Johnson’s, remaining so for the next 45 years. When Erbaugh actu- ally retired in 1968, Bud’s younger brother, Carl Johnson, came on board as a second pharmacist. Bud then had his turn at retire - ment, in 1984. According to a News article that year, the business reported increased dollar volume every year since 1951 except for one — 1973 — when an Antioch student strike kept the college virtually closed for months. Of that era, one villager recalled, “comics, candy and endless hair dye” in the aisles of Erbaugh & John- son’s, and the soda fountain was the spot for local youth. After Bud’s retirement in 1984, Carl and his wife, Sue, then went on to run the pharmacy and store for another dozen years. “They were always side by PHOTO: YS NEWS ARCHIVE Longtime employee Belle Bennington at the drug store in 1996.