Hoskins drug store in Anderson County harkens to simpler times
Photo by Bob Fowler
Sisters Mollie Scarbrough, left, and Dudley Bostic, co-owners of Hoskins Drug Store, show off their banana split. It is one of the favored creations of the store's soda fountain area.
Anderson County
- Population: (2007 Census estimate): 73,471
- Founded: Nov. 6, 1801; formed from parts of Knox and Grainger counties by legislative act; named after then-U.S. Sen. Joseph Anderson
- County seat: Clinton, population 9,541. Originally named Burrville after Aaron Burr, the name was changed after Burr fell into dishonor. In early 1900s, it was a center of the pearl-button industry. But the completion of Norris Dam altered the environment and killed out the mussels that provided the shells from which buttons were made.
- Other cities/towns:
- Oak Ridge, population 27,514. Created in World War II as a then-secret city involved in the Manhattan Project.
- Oliver Springs, population 3,312. One-time tourist attraction because of a spring whose water was thought to have restorative powers; located in Anderson, Roane and Morgan counties; formerly named Winter's Gap; name changed to honor its first postmaster, Richard Oliver.
- Lake City, population 1,842. Storied past as the center of a coal-mining community; sits in both Anderson and Campbell counties.
- Norris, population 1,466. Planned community built to house workers who constructed nearby Norris Dam in the 1930s.
- Attractions: Museum of Appalachia; American Museum of Science & Energy; Children's Museum of Oak Ridge; Norris Dam State Park.
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Small-town history is scratched into the wooden walls of booths in Hoskins Drug Store, a Main Street landmark in Clinton that's on the National Register of Historic Places.
The initials of youthful visitors are etched on those 62-year-old walls, along with declarations of love.
"I hear wonderful stories of wedding proposals made in these booths," said Dudley Bostic.
She and her sister, pharmacist Mollie Scarbrough, own the business.
"We were raised here," Bostic said.
The store is notable for a vanishing slice of Americana - the soda fountain.
It features 75 seats in booths and at the counter. Framed copies of newspaper stories about the drug store and old black-and-white photos of crowds inside line the walls.
"I've heard people say they didn't know a place like this still existed," Bostic said.
The store and its soda fountain are featured in glossy color photos inside a new coffee table book titled "Soda Fountains of the South."
People perched on padded stools at the counter can watch as home-cooked country meals, banana splits and banana puddings are whipped up.
Located across from the Anderson County Courthouse and next to another historic structure, the Ritz Theater, Hoskins Drugs is a favorite gathering spot.
"People who want to know what's going on come in and sit and talk," said Bostic.
Local politicians, from U.S. senators to governors to those campaigning for statewide offices, often stop at the drug store in search of votes and publicity.
The daughters' father, R.C. "Dudley" Hoskins, who died in 1999 at age 93, was the founding father of the Clinton drug store, as well as several others throughout East Tennessee.
He located one pharmacy on nearby Market Street in 1930 and opened the Main Street store in April 1947. His wife, Katherine, who died four years ago at age 81, managed the Main Street store for 28 years.
That building was previously the showroom for Dawn Chevrolet, and it took R.C. Hoskins two years to remodel the building to become one of the first department-type drug stores in East Tennessee, Bostic said.
Nothing has changed; from the soda fountain area to the fixtures, made in Chicago and shipped south, to the original terrazzo floor.
There was a beauty shop in the back of the drug store for 44 years; now, it's a clubroom for local organizations and where jurors have meals while criminal court is in session.
While lunch hours and Saturday morning breakfasts are the usual busy times, the soda fountain also caters to the after-school crowd, with children coming in for snacks.
Its clientele can truly be dedicated, Bostic said. When a fire broke out in the ceiling in March 1970, firefighters had to coax customers to leave.
"They wanted to finish their meals," she said.
Bob Fowler may be reached at 865-481-3625.
© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel
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