Contributed by Teresa Douglass, Genealogy Specialist
This 1947 ad for Herb Habermel’s Drug Store suggests a few products to get you started – all at rock bottom prices!
Pharmacist Herb Habermel (1904-1955) and his wife, Francis, opened a drugstore at 117 E. Chestnut Street in Corydon in August 1945 (this property was most recently occupied by Beckort Auctions, and is soon to be Williams Bakery). The store featured a wide variety of items, ranging from toiletries, cosmetics, and medicinal products to jewelry, clocks, toys, and household appliances. In addition, Habermel’s also sold medications for livestock, offered a laundry service, had a large soda fountain, and doubled as a Greyhound Bus station.
In 1952, the Habermels decided to move to Evansville and sold their drugstore business on Chestnut Street to William H. Butt, who then established Butt’s Drug Store at this location. Twenty years later, Butt Drugs moved into the adjacent building to the west (previously occupied by Ordner’s Variety Store, and before that, Jay C grocery) and continued to operate there until 2023.
To see photographs of Habermel’s and more ads, visit HCPL’s Habermel’s Drug Store collection.
