HINTON W.Va. (Hinton News) – This week’s piece is a little different in that I do not physically have this item, unfortunately. I was in the process of bidding on this Guinn’s Drug Store, Hinton W.Va. bottle but I got distracted as the auction was ending on eBay, was outbid and lost it.
But this piece is too rare to not draw attention to it. Based on the deep purple color it can be dated most likely to the late 1880s. Purple color bottles like this were popular from the 1840s through the end of the 1880s.
Now as for a man by the name of Guinn who owned a drugstore in Hinton, I have searched and searched and have been unable to find anything about this item specifically. There have been numerous drug stores and pharmacies in Hinton throughout the town’s history.
Currently, there is only Walgreens, Kroger Pharmacy, and Big Four Drug Store with the most recent addition to the list being the pharmacy at Summers County ARH Hospital. In researching this item I did find an early 1900s photo of the Hinton Drug Company in Hinton, W.Va which was on 3rd Avenue.
The photo description mentions a guy by the name of Wade H. Guinn as being one of the store managers. Guinn is the gentleman leaning against the corner post by the front door. I always find it interesting that businessmen around this time and even the children standing opposite Guinn would stop whatever they were doing to be in a photo. It can be assumed that Wade Guinn had started his own drug company as just “Quinn Drug Store” but later merged with and helped form the Hinton Drug Company with some other local businessmen in the community at that time.
That is because having a photo taken was not an everyday occurrence as it is today. “Setting up” was a tedious process to take or as we say today “snap” a photo. Now it is nothing to snap 1 to 10 photos a day with the camera on your cell phone. But back in the day, only professional photographers had cameras and development equipment.
If you have any information on this bottle or the Guinn Drug Store in Hinton, please send me an email at greenbrierantiques@gmail.
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