Oldest drug store in U.S. remains independent under new ownership

Carl’s Drug Store has a new owner as it approaches its third century of serving the Greencastle-Antrim community and beyond.

Wayne Myers purchased Greencastle’s oldest business — also believed to be the longest continuously operating pharmacy in the United States — from Rodger Savage in mid-August.

More Greencastle-Antrim business news:Listen up. Art joins the lineup at Chatty Chameleon

The transaction maintains the local, independent ownership that’s been in place since Adam Carl opened his drug store at 13 S. Carlisle St. on April 27, 1825.

Myers also helped start and owns Norland Avenue Pharmacy in the WellSpan medical complex on St. Paul Drive in Chambersburg. Savage will continue to operate Savage Family Pharmacy in Waynesboro.

Savage and Myers are, respectively, only the second and third non-Carl family members to own the drug store in its 198-year history. They follow Frank Ervin, who purchased it from Adam Carl’s great-grandson, Edward R. Carl, on Jan. 1, 1974.

Savage bought Carl’s, now at 145 N. Antrim Way, from Ervin in January 2013.

All three are doctors of pharmacy with Franklin County roots and unique connections to their stores.

At a time when chain pharmacies and big box stores are the norm, they emphasize the customer care and service independent pharmacies bring to a community.

 “I’m glad it’s still independent,” Ervin said. “My congratulations to Wayne and thanks to Rodger and Wayne for continuing the legacy.”

“We’re very excited to carry on the long legacy and tradition,” said Myers.

“I have a whole team around me, taking care of the stores and the people we serve at the stores,” Myers said.

The team includes his wife, Wendy, the gift-buyer who has made Norland Avenue Pharmacy a destination for people shopping for gifts. She brings her talents to Carl’s, where Shane Clugston remains the pharmacist in charge.

“The team there has done a great job and we want to do more,” said Myers. That includes a social media presence, an update of the website carlsdrug.com and a front-end facelift, including new gifts and nutritional products.

“People will still see the friendly faces they’re used to,” Myers said.

What are the back stories of two drug store owners?

When he was young, Frank Ervin was a pharmacy tech and clerk at Carl’s Drug Store, then located at 6 E. Baltimore St., and his father, the late Richard J. Ervin, was a pharmacist there for many years.

The 1968 graduate of Greencastle-Antrim High School was in his senior year at Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and on Christmas break in 1973 when he got a call from Edward R. Carl, who had an offer from someone else to buy the drug store.

“He called me, and I thought ‘What the hey?’” recalled Ervin, who assumed ownership in January 1974 when he was 23 and never worked anywhere else.

Ervin moved the business to North Antrim Way in 1999 and continued to work part-time after selling it to Savage until 2019.

Savage, a 1980 graduate of Waynesboro Area Senior High School and a 1989 graduate of Temple School of Pharmacy, joined his father, the late Bill Savage, at Minnich’s Pharmacy in Waynesboro in 1991. The elder Savage had purchased the drug store in 1972, the name became Savage-Minnich Pharmacy in 1993 and Rodger Savage bought the business from his father in 1999.

The name was changed to Savage Family Pharmacy when it moved from Main Street to the Waynesboro Mall, where is remains today, in 2001.

Myers heard talk through local chambers of commerce that Savage might be looking to scale back and got in touch with him.

“Rodger was committed to keeping it independent,” Myers said, noting Savage could have made more money selling to a chain. “He’s a great guy, excellent to work with … couldn’t have asked for a better transition.”

What’s the mission of the pharmacies?

Myers said he’s seen the pharmacies at both ends of the spectrum, from ground zero with Norland Avenue to the nearly 200-year-old Carl’s.

The mission statement of both drug stores is “We are healthcare experts who glorify God by educating and providing our community with solutions that will improve quality of life.”

“Things don’t happen by chance, there’s a purpose and a reason behind them,” Myers said. “God put me here to be a light and serve surrounding communities.”

A 1990 graduate of Waynesboro Area Senior High School, he received his doctor of pharmacy degree from the University of Maryland in 1999.

Myers was working in a pediatric hospital when he was called back to this area to start Norland Avenue from the ground up with the late Tom Stonesifer, who owned Park Avenue Pharmacy in Chambersburg.

Summit Health, which later became part of WellSpan, wanted an on-site pharmacy and approached Stonesifer. He said he would help start it if another pharmacist could be found to run it.

“We took it all on at one time … got married, moved here, bought a house, started a new business ... and somewhere along the way fit in four kids,” Myers said.

How did Carl’s get its longevity claim to fame?

Adam Carl was born in Hanover, Pa., on Dec. 16, 1800, later lived in Carlisle and became interested in medicine, according to information on the Allison-Antrim Museum website compiled by Ervin and Bonnie Shockey, museum president.

After moving to Greencastle, he opened Carl’s Drug Store in 1825 and went on to graduate from Washington Medical College in Baltimore in 1829.

An 1851 advertisement in the Conococheague Herald, Greencastle’s weekly newspaper, indicated Dr. A. Carl and his son, William, had “a full and well selected assortment of fresh drugs, medicines, oils, paints, glassware, cigars, chewing tobacco” etc. and assured the public that they “made the sale of Medicines a matter of conscience and not of profit.”

William Carl assumed management of the store when his father turned to medicine full-time in 1854. Adam Carl treated wounded Confederates as they passed through Greencastle following the Battle of Gettysburg.

In ensuing years, family members leading the store included Adam Carl’s son-in-law, Dr. Franklin A. Bushey; grandson, Charles B. Carl; and great-grandson Edward R. Carl, who operated it from 1935 until selling to Ervin in 1974.

Carl’s Drug store was identified as third among the oldest continuously operating drug stores in an article “Drug Topics: Voice of the Pharmacist” did for the bicentennial of the United States in 1776.

The other two no longer exist, Ervin said. The 2007 article “America’s oldest pharmacy: Carl’s Drug keeps on ticking” by the same trade publication said, “Its amazing 182-year longevity has earned it the unofficial honor of being America’s oldest pharmacy continuously serving the same community.”

Carl’s Drug Store’s 200th birthday in 2025 will coincide with another long-standing Greencastle-Antrim tradition, the 42nd triennial Old Home Week.

Myers and Kim Dockman, marketing director, are already thinking about festivities that celebrate just not just Carl’s Drug Store, but other local independent pharmacies including Norland Avenue Pharmacy and Savage Family Pharmacy.

“We want to show their value and beauty,” Myers said.

See the pictures:It's back to school time at Greencastle-Antrim Primary School

Shawn Hardy is a reporter with Gannett's Franklin County newspapers in south-central Pennsylvania — the Echo Pilot in Greencastle, The Record Herald in Waynesboro and the Public Opinion in Chambersburg. She has more than 35 years of journalism experience. Reach her at shardy@gannett.com