History of a Couple of Blocks

The Christie-Mary-Murray Streets Area of Pembroke

Edward "Teddy" Rowan was a well liked young man around town. He had been a good student, often making the honours list when he attended the old Pembroke High School on Isabella Street and after school, on weekends and on summer vacations he worked as a clerk in Box's Drug Store located in the old Copeland Hotel. During the summer baseball season he was also the pitcher for the Pembroke Pirates baseball team and he must have been good in that capacity as the team frequently were the winners of the town pennant while he was on the mound. Perhaps working for Mr. Box inspired Teddy to want to become a pharmacist as upon graduating from high school he applied for and was accepted into the University of Toronto's Pharmacy program. Mr. Box seemed to have influenced another young man in town, Mr. H. M. Kilpatrick, who had worked for him as well before becoming a pharmacist in his own right, opening his drug store at 153 Pembroke Street west in July of 1921. 

Over the 1923 Christmas holidays Teddy was home visiting his parents, perhaps discussing his future plans before returning to finish up his degree in Pharmacy at the University of Toronto. In the spring, after graduation, he returned to Pembroke, seemed to take the summer off and then that autumn of 1924 he opened his own business, "Teddy Rowan's New West End Drug Store" at the corner of Mary and Murray Streets. Today that first drug store  is the home of the J.C.L Systems of Hair Design at 379 Mary Street owned by Mr. Jim Lyons, a long time business man in the town of Pembroke.

Mr. Rowan was not more than a couple of years at this location when he moved his store a block north to the corner of Isabella and Murray Streets now calling his business "Rowan's Drug Store" moving into the old location of Gordon Appleby's Butcher Shop, which was originally Mr. Church's Grocery and dry good store, opened in 1887.

He took time after moving to assure the farmers of the area he still had room for them to park their horses and wagons and was prepared to treat what ailed them whether it be for man or beast. Within months of his moving his drugstore became an agent for Apex Records who distributed the records of the popular singing star of the day, Mr. Vernon Dalhart. Most of his advertising during these years centred around records and record players rather than on the drug business and to hear what he was promoting you can go on to You Tube and listen to Dalhart's recording of "The Wreck of the Old 97" among others.

He must have done well during these first years as he was able to buy he a vacant lot next to Freiman's department store (now Bob's Music) on the main street of Pembroke and on August 23rd, 1929, opened a new store at 109 Pembroke Street west that would be managed by Mr. Allan St.James while Mr. Rowan remained at the Isabella Street store. 

You can still see the remains of that drug store on Pembroke Street. As you walk by the recently closed Ottawa Valley Goldsmith stop and lift up a corner of the entranceway mat and there's the reminder of the third, of four, Rowan Drug Stores.

In years to come he changed locations once again, this time moving next door to a larger store where there is still a drug store operating today and where, for years, Rowan's Drug Store was a well known and respected fixture on the main street of Pembroke.

That little strip of stores where Rowan's began and Jim Lyons nows has his Salon was, with the surrounding area, a busy commercial section of the town at one time. After Teddy Rowan moved his store his location was taken over by Mr. M.E. Peever, barber, and next door to him a young man by the name of O.W. Risto opened a butcher shop. Risto did alright for himself as over the next few years he built a new home and shop just down the street and by late 1927 he was in his new place at 407 Mary Street where he and his heirs ran the business for decades to come. 

Around the same time as Mr. Risto moved, Mr. Peever disappeared from the scene and now, in 1928, the future home of Jim Lyons' salon became the headquarters for the International Timber Co. This company with the grand sounding name, run by Leo Allard and Lorne Tanney, was in the business of shipping Christmas trees and in that first year they did a landslide business shipping trees by the boxcar load to New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia and even by boat to far off Cuba. But the great depression was on the horizon and people were beginning to have more urgent needs than an imported tree so by the autumn of 1930 the business was gone and the store was empty.

Back when the International Timber Co. was still setting up shop Mr. James Leckie took over the location next door just vacated by Mr. Risto and opened up a grocery store, lasted a couple of years and then left, the store then being taken over, around 1931, by Mr. J. Tanney who opened a butcher shop and by the end of the decade it had been occupied for some time by the barber shop of Mr. A. Villeneuve. 

Mr. Lyons hair dressing salon was, in turn over the coming years, Mark Huot's grocery store, the first location for Chadwicks grocery store and by the mid 1950's it was the home of DeLux Dry Cleaners with Ford's Radio's next door.

If you had thought there were enough grocery stores in the area with Ristos mid way down the block and a changing venue of grocers at the end of it you'd be wrong. Right across the street from this, on the corner of Mary and Murray there was a long standing grocery business that was run in turn over these years by Lorne Tanney, Emile Sylvester, and A.A. Zeibell  and is now the home of Steve's Variety.

Then at the other end of the block on Mary street at the corner of Christie there was, in the front of the old British Lion Hotel, a grocery store run through all this time by Mr. M.T. Lawn. And if that wasn't enough in the later part of the 1920's the Dominion Store chain of grocers opened a second Pembroke location across the street taking over the restaurant run by Mr. T.P. Foran on the south west corner of Christie and Mary. When it closed some time in the 1930's it became  Mr. S.S. Costello's Meat Market and today it is an apartment block. 

To add more stores into the mix, there was, just up the block on Christie at the corner of Miller, the old grocery store of Mr. Joseph Wolfe who in 1920 sold it to Mr. Robt. Scott who in turn sold it to Mr. Ferdinand Fredrick. Mr Frederick was successful enough to expand the store to encompass two addresses, both the original 360 Christie Street and then both 358 and 360. 

Then on the south-east corner of the same intersection was the large and successful grocery store owned by Ezra Budd and of course just down the block on Miller Street was Webb's Bakery where fresh bread could be had every day but Sunday. 

If you went a couple of blocks west on Mary Street you'd come upon John Benkhe's grocery store at the corner of James Street and a block south  on Murray would take you to  Mr. Appleby's (until 1924) or walk across the street to McGaughy's grocery store and later in the decade also shop in their bakery. If you wanted a change you could have walked across Renfrew street to pick up some groceries at  Mrs. Lucas' grocery store at the corner of Hinks Street and then, since you were in the area you could scoot across Hinks and pick up a loaf of bread at Whyte's Bakery at number 224.

This competition among grocers seemed to be standard throughout the town in those days. If you saw one grocery store there was a better than even chance you could glance around and see at least one other.

On the south side of Mary Street, in an apartment at the east end of the old British Lion Hotel there was, throughout the 1920's, a shoe repair business run by Mr. L.M. LaFontaine at 406 Mary Street. By the mid 1930's as business increased Mr. LaFontaine moved his shop across the street to 405 Mary Street, directly to the east of Mr. Risto's store and remained in this location well into the 1950's. This is now the location of Court's barber shop. The only other business on the south side of the street on this block was the Pembroke Cash Coal Supply, run out of the home of J.W. Tennant at 400 Mary Street which was there for a brief time in the late 1930's.

At around the same time as Mr. LaFontaine was moving his store across the street Mr. Cyril Fortier opened a cartage business out of his new home at 399 Mary Street and at the west end of the block Mr. Tusford Labine opened an upholstery business at 411 Mary street but either moved or went out of business some time within the decade as by the late 1940's neither his business or the address at which it was listed under was there.

- written in 2016 so stores may have changed at the time you are reading this___p.l.