Lost Capitol Hill: The Peoples on H

Certain names still bring back memories to older DC residents: Hot Shoppes, Little Tavern, and, of course, Peoples Drug Stores. All three were once ubiquitous in DC and the surrounding areas, and even today, various remnants remain, with the distinctive buildings of the Little Taverns still around and the Hot Shoppes returning to DC next year. Peoples Drug stores, on the other hand, have all been converted to CVS pharmacies, and their history lost.

Peoples Drug Store started in 1905 with a single shop on 7^th Street NW. Expansion of the chain that soon became ubiquitous in the region came slowly: Ten years after the original store opened, there were but two stores. However, in the next years, Malcolm Gibbs, the owner, began expansion, under the slogan “As We Live We Grow.” The first four stores were all in the northwest quadrant of DC, but by 1916, it was clear that there was a great need for his products in other parts of the city.

Gibbs settled on a location near the corner of 8^th and H Streets, NE, to cater to the many people commuting home on the street car line that ran down H. On December 2, 1916, undeterred by a breakin a week earlier, the new shop was opened with great fanfare, cigars for the men, and “Gude’s home grown flowers” for the ladies.

The store was, the Washington Herald wrote, “replete in every way with not only the makings for the Christmas Holidays, but a very complete assortment of everyday necessities that are to be found in a drug store,” all at “attractive prices on staple drugs and novelties.”

The Peoples Drug Store on H. The movie theater next door is showing (among other things, presumably) the short “Blazing the Way” starring James Warner (Shorpies)

About five years later, an enterprising photographer took a picture of the front of the building. Inside the open door, a nattily-dressed man can be seen, though it is unclear whether he is a pharmacist or a customer. The two windows flanking the entrance are both well-filled with products. While a fair bit of space is given over to cigars, patent medicine make up the bulk. One of the products has the suspicious (for these prohibition times) name of Vinol, which was – even more suspiciously – 18% alcohol. However, it was a cod liver oil tonic and thus probably not, in spite of the name, used to circumvent prohibition. Also advertised are two entirely non-drug products being sold: Coca-Cola and Chapin-Sacks-made ice cream [http://www.thehillishome.com/2013/09/lost-capitol-hill-the-chapin-sacks-manufacturing-company/] Above the window is the sign announcing the store’s purpose. The lights surrounding the sign, which proclaim that “Peoples Drug Store No. 5; ‘We always sell the best’” are not lit.

Inside the store, further pictures from the time show a single aisle flanked left and right by counters, and walls well-filled with products, and manned by well-dressed attendants. It was probably the size that soon caused Gibbs to reconsider this location. As his business boomed, this store just was too small. By 1928, it had been replaced by an Old Dutch Market supermarket, while other People’s Drug stores continued to thrive along H.

804 H street NE is today a T-Mobile shop; the movie theater next door a PNC bank. If you find yourself in the area and in need of a drug store, there is one across the street. It is not, however, a CVS, but a Rite-Aid.