Oklahoma Frontier Drugstore Museum(55)
- Jonathan Elmore
- 4 hours ago
- 2 min read
GUTHRIE
Tucked away in one of downtown Guthrie's historic buildings lives the Oklahoma Frontier Drugstore Museum. Long story short, I love this place! True, I am a museum nerd so I say that a lot, but this one was a completely unique collection of everyday things that were found in every pharmacy from the earliest days of our statehood and on throught the decades to follow. It's a collection of the pills, powders, syrups, tonics, and um, leeches that made up the cures for every kind of ailment you could be facing as you tried to survive in the new frontier of the Sooner state.
I was greeted at the door by one of my favorite new friends and volunteer at the museum, Sue. She and I had a great conversation as she showed me some of her favorite things in the museum. For me, that's the best way to see a new museum. Learn from the folks who are there. They've had the time to look in depth at the collections and learn about things that most of us might just skim over as we take it all in. Having specific things pointed out by Sue really focused my attention because at first glance, the drugstore is a bit overwhelming with the thousands of items that have all been donated. They've set up the museum really well though. On the walls there are countless remedies and they've shelved and categorized them into the ailments like "Hair Growth", "Cough and Croup", and "Liniments". Oh, yeah, and of course the ceramic countertop display of Leeches. HA!
Before I finished looking around, two other volunteers showed up and we all had a great conversation, partially about the cool things in the museum and partially about our lives. What a great thing; conversations with real people. In person. That's one of the reasons I'm doing this Museum Crawler project. We all need to get out of the house, put down our phones, and have conversations with interesting people. Imagine what you could learn! I certainly learned a lot at the Frontier Drugstore. You can to if you head to downtown Guthrie. And there are plenty of shops nearby to see too. So make a day of it and visit Oklahoma's first capital city, Guthrie.
214 W Oklahoma Ave
405-282-1895
Entry Fee: $5 donation appreciated
Jonathan Elmore ©2025
