This vintage postcard, circa 1910s, pictures Lima, Ohio's Metropolitan Block Building, erected in 1890. Click the photo to enlarge.
You can see:
- The Metropolitan Cigar Store
- The HF Vortkamp Drug Store
- ''The Fair'' (no info yet)
- The Republican Party Headquarters.
- HF Vortkamp bottle from the Joseph Terry collection.
- Read a short bio of HF Vortkamp.
- My two Vortkamps medicine bottles.
- The top one says German Apothecary, with the Met Block address.
- The second bottle has 2 locations, and tells us Vortkamps was now a Rexall Store.
"In 1902, Louis K. Liggett persuaded 40 independent drug stores to invest $4,000 in a retailers' cooperative called United Drug Stores, which sold products under the Rexall name. (The "Rex" in the name came from the common Rx abbreviation for drug prescriptions.)"
- Professor Vortkamp seems to have retired around 1920, according to an entry in the 1921 National Association of Retail Druggists Journal (NARD).
Metropolitan Cigar Store token/advertising premium.
Proprietor was a Mr. McCoy, but no other info found yet.
- A b&w view of the old Metropolitan Block Building morphed with the colorful 21st century modern stores on the ground floor.
- Photo created by MotoMedia as seen on the Downtown Lima Facebook page.
- Read a short article about the beginnings of the Metropolitan Block Building.
- The building was later called the American House, and the Stippich Hardware, and is now called the Met Block.
- It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, along with several of Lima's other noted buildings.
Note: These items are part of my ''Collecting Lima Virtual Museum''. They are not for sale.
If/when I find more information on these items, I will add it to the post.
Read the Introduction to Collecting Lima Virtual Museum Project ~ My Lima Ohio Bottles, Advertising, Antiques
Ms. Dow Antiques Blog 'Tique Talk is published by msdowantiques.com
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