The Collette Pharmacy through the years.

Digging through the history of Pharmacies in Chippewa Falls prior to 1910 you have a lot of names to deal with.  Something on the order of 29 or 30 individuals operating in various partnerships.  But in general there would be four or at most five drug stores in town at any one time.  These long running enterprises - such as the Eagle Drug Store we recently visited - continued on for decades with different men behind the counter.  Here's an example of a store, or at least a building, that has survived into the modern era.

Now a very nice Thai restaurant it was once.....

Urgel Collette was born in Quebec in 1857.  He came with his family to Chippewa Falls at age 13 and began clerking at one of the established pharmacies circa 1874.  Six years later he started his own store.  I suspect he actually took over the store he worked at but as drug stores came and went pretty quickly in the 1870's I can't say which one.  If I had to guess I'd say Leahy and Jesson as they went out of business at about the right time.

In 1888 he built the handsome brick structure that still stands on Bridge street.  Business was good and in addition he took on the clientele of a druggist named Wilcox who died in 1891.

That same year a notice in the paper says that:  "Joseph Nolte after taking a course at the School of Pharmacy passed a successful examination and is now a registered druggist.  He has resumed his place at Urgel Collette's."  As the 19th century inched closer to the 20th pharmacy was becoming a more professional business.  Just being a hospital steward or a long term clerk was by that point not considered sufficient qualification.

Collette had the usual small town life.  He turns up in various minor civic jobs.  When he and or his wife go out of town their doings get reported.  At one point Mrs. Collette was said to be "..quite sick with brain fever" but she recovered uneventfully.

In 1898 Urgel Collette dies and the business is taken over by long term employee Joseph Nolte in partnership with a man named Ihle.  Nolte is said to have worked at the store for 13 years and to be fluent in French and German.  Ihle came over from a pharmacy in Menomonie.

Nolte and Ihle kept the Collette name.  Partly to preserve the tradition but I suspect also out of respect for the founder.  

In 1919 Nolte died unexpectedly.  The next year the building was purchased by other parties and converted into a meat market.  It has been other things over the subsequent century.  At one point it seems to have been a drug store again, run by a man named Oleson.  I see mention of a business called Kookers North, whatever that was.  I vaguely recall it being a barbershop called Gentleman's Quarters when I moved to town in the mid 1980's but I could be confusing it with the many similarly named establishments.  For a while it was an interesting hamburger joint with a railroad theme.  That proprietor was a guy whose main interest was renovating old buildings and he did a good job at that.  At running the restaurant maybe not as well.  Its been Mahli Thai for about a decade now.  I recommend their food highly.

When the original building was sold in 1920 the drug store, I assume run now by Ihle, moved down the street to 224 North Bridge Street.  This was in the "Ihle Block" no longer extant.  But next door there was still a pharmacy when I came to town.  Was Konsella Drug in the direct lineage of Urgel Collette? Konsella's has been closed for about a decade.

Urgel Collette bottles are relatively uncommon given the length of time he was in business.  This one still has some residue of the circa 1895 prescription gumming up the insides.

Nolte and Ihle bottles on the other hand are very common.  It was still the Collette Drug Store a decade or so after its founder had passed.