McGill Drugstore Museum

This Rexall Drugstore close to Ely, Nevada, is a well-preserved, fully-stocked 1950s pharmacy and soda fountain. Here you can find that dead-stock max factor nail polish your grandma used to wear, or her favorite perfume that was discontinued in 1978. You’ll also find every prescription anyone that lived in that town from the 1950s-1980s ever needed… or didn’t (including prescriptions for whisky).

The pharmacy was built in the early 20th century, not long after the town of McGill was built to provide housing for workers in a nearby mine. It supported the town for many years, but after the pharmacist and owner passed away in 1979, his wife closed the pharmacy.  Years later, the family donated the store and its remaining inventory to the White Pine Public Museum, so that the history could be preserved and shared.

Visitors can open drawers, look through shelves, and really start to understand the inner workings of a pharmacy and soda fountain. Records of invoices and prescriptions filled at the pharmacy dating back to 1915 have been preserved.