Museum Monday: Post Office Pharmacy

It's Museum Monday, so we're excited to share a project we've been working on behind the scenes. We were all saddened by the closure of Post Office Pharmacy in December, but we are happy to share that we've been working with Jim Bevilacqua to preserve the history of the last of our historic independent pharmacies in Saranac Lake. Over the last couple of months, our Museum Administrator Chessie and Museum Assistant Nathan have been working to survey, select, and rehouse items from the decades of pharmacy history in the building.

We have selected hundreds of items to add to the collection at Historic Saranac Lake, including bottles, prescription logs, pharmacy tools, photographs, correspondence, and more. These objects document the history of pharmacies, patient care, and daily life in Saranac Lake since the 1880s, including trends and innovation in the treatment of TB patients. We still have a lot of work to do on this collection, but we are already planning ways to display items from and do research with this historic collection. Stay tuned for more updates as we work with these items and make interesting discoveries! And a HUGE thank you to Jim for his enthusiasm and support in preserving our history.

In the mean time, you can learn more about the history of Post Office Pharmacy on our wiki.

PS - Did you know that P.A.S. was the second antibiotic found to be effective against tuberculosis? Check out that label!

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