Doe's Drug Store - Philipsburg, MT
Posted by: 
T0SHEA
N 46° 19.938 W 113° 17.676
12T E 323392 N 5133528
Built in 1887, this building was not only a drug store but also, strangely, Philipsburg's first gas station.
Waymark Code: WMN25X
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 12/11/2014
Views: 2
This elegantly embellished building, shows a dual personality because it was initially divided into a hotel, to the left, and a drug store, to the right. Built in 1887, at some time in the early 1900s they began to market gasoline for the first autos which came to the town, possibly because no one else was selling it. Pumped by hand from barrels in front of the store, we doubt it would have met even the most lax of safety regulations today.
The building remained a drug store, operated by M. E. Doe, until the 1980s, at least. Now a soda shop, this is a real old time soda shop, with lots of period fixtures. In the shop are the old sign from the drug store and even the safe once used by M.E. Doe, the druggist. It's too bad no one thought to save one of the old hand operated gas pumps.
Now a contributing building to the Philibsburg National Historic District, the text from the NRHP plaque follows:
In the 1880s and 1890s, masonry structures gradually replaced the frame buildings left from Philipsburg’s mining camp days. Doe and Hoyer constructed this commercial brick building in 1887. Modini’s Grand Hotel and Restaurant was located in the west half. M. E. Doe and his sons owned and managed the drug store on the east half of the ground floor until 1969. Doe’s Drug Store even sold the town’s first gasoline, hand pumped from barrels out front.
