MUSEUM HELPS VISITORS APPRECIATE MODERN DRUGS

GUTHRIE -- Looking through the glass cases at the Oklahoma Frontier Drug
Store Museum, the difference between modern medicines and
turn-of-the-century tonics is stark. Small brown bottles with peeling
labels line the shelves of the Drug Store Museum, along with boxes of hair
tonic and baby oils. Patients today aren't likely to find ground cactus or
Jamaican ginger root in their pharmacies, but they can find them at 214 W
Oklahoma.

Museum curator Mark Ekiss has spent a decade collecting the 20,000
artifacts, and he's inventoried and appraised every one of them. About 90
percent are donated from Oklahoma drug stores, he said.

Many of the museum artifacts are rare, Ekiss said. Some antiques can't be
found in modern pharmacies, including a delicate blue and white urn with
gold lettering across the front: "Leeches."

"We have a lot of one-of-a-kind artifacts that you won't find any place
else," Ekiss said. A box of "Arsenic Complexion Wafers," dated 1900, is the
most unusual artifact in the museum, Ekiss said. Women would eat the toxic
arsenic wafers to make their cheeks rosy.

Cocaine, morphine and laudanum (opium dissolved in alcohol) were sold to
pharmacy customers without prescriptions before 1915, Ekiss said.

A "Poison Register" documented the men and women who bought these drugs.
Patients listed their name, address, "poison" and purpose for buying the drug.

One woman listed her reason for buying cocaine as "medical." One man simply
wrote "habit."

About 7,500 visitors come to the museum each year. Last year, tourists came
from all 50 states and 34 foreign countries. Ekiss said he would often have
"three-way conversations" -- non-English speaking visitors would speak
through an interpreter to ask questions about the museum and the artifacts.

Most visitors leave the museum with a new perspective of their
prescriptions, Ekiss said.

"They can get a better appreciation for modern medicine when they can see
how far we've come in 100 years," he said. "It's amazing."

The museum is designed to resemble an early 1900s pharmacy. The soda
fountain and cases lining the outer walls were typical characteristics of
turn-of-the-century pharmacies.

Many artifacts are more than 100 years old. Most of the bottles in the
collection have cork caps, an important dating tool, Ekiss said. Bottles
with cork caps, called "corkers," were used until 1925, when screw-on metal
caps became popular.

A cracked, black leather saddle bag designed to carry medicine is the
oldest item in the museum, dating to 1865. A light brown bottle case on the
saddle hugs a couple of glass medicine bottles.

A rusting suppository mold, dated to 1867, is another one of the older
artifacts, Ekiss said.

Prescription slips dated 1904 are some of Ekiss' favorite artifacts. He
donated them from the collection he had at Mark's Drug in Guthrie, a
pharmacy Ekiss owned before retiring.

In addition to the donated bottles and boxes, a Guthrie artist made a
one-of-a-kind donation of his own.

Fred Olds gave six original paintings to the museum, unpaid and
unsolicited. Five of the oil paintings are of prairie scenes and one is of
children at a soda fountain. Pam Ekiss, Don's daughter and the only paid
museum employee, said Olds approached the museum about donating his work,
and the paintings add to the atmosphere of the museum.

All the other workers at the museum are volunteers, usually Guthrie
residents, pharmacy students or pharmacists, Don Ekiss said. He works about
five hours a day, five to six days a week.

The museum opened Sept. 13, 1992, and is on the first floor of the
two-story Gaffney Building, home of the first Oklahoma pharmacy, Lillie
Drug Store. The owner, Foress B. Lillie, came to Oklahoma Territory as part
of the land run in 1889.

After rushing from the outskirts, Lillie set up a tent and sold medical
supplies to pioneers. Before the land run, he had sent boxes of drugs to
the depot in Guthrie, so he was ready for business the day after the rush.
The spot he chose -- next door to the land office -- proved a profitable
location, and Lillie's Drug Store flourished. He later moved in to the
Gaffney Building across the street from his make-shift tent pharmacy.

Lillie was a founder of the Oklahoma Pharmaceutical Association and the
first Oklahoma pharmacist, receiving the No. 1 certificate from the newly
formed association. His certificate is on display at the museum. Lillie was
also the first secretary of the Oklahoma Board of Pharmacy. He died in 1927.

The museum is funded through grants and donations, and museum memberships
account for much of the funding. About 300 pharmacists with lifetime
memberships pledge $100 a year for 10 years.

"It's those pledges and the few grants we've got that have kept our heads
above water," Ekiss said.

Ekiss is applying for additional grants to buy the parking lot next to the
museum to make a tourist area with park benches, fountains and a gazebo.