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Los Gatos Weekly-Times file photograph
This unassuming building on N. Santa Cruz Avenue once held a popular local pharmacy whose owner was also popular--even with gangsters.
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Best of Picture from the Past
Los Gatos was once the home of thriving small pharmacies
By John S. Baggerly
'I was a clap doctor for gangsters in Chicago before I came here," Mr. Knowland--whose first name seems to have disappeared from local history-- once said while at his Northgate Pharmacy, located at 349 N. Santa Cruz Ave., a few yards from Los Gatos-Saratoga Road. Today, Wolf Camera occupies number 349 opposite Double D's Sports Grille. (Since this column ran originally, the Town Chamber of Commerce has taken over this site.)
At mid-century, Lloyd E. Smith expanded his Los Gatos Times to five days a week, and news people were asked to service advertisers. Knowland was on this writer's list. He said that before coming to Los Gatos he had been a druggist in Chicago's "Loop," a name for a certain downtown area. It was there that he filled and refilled prescriptions for gangsters with gonorrhea, often called the clap in street-talk. Twice Knowland recognized ex-gangsters coming into his Los Gatos store, and they had pleasant talks.
Later he recognized another gang member from the Windy City and began talking to him. Knowland said the man became angry and stalked out. Knowland assumed the man had turned state's evidence against the mob and was given a new identity under the Witness Protection Program.
In the 1930s, a Los Gatos man refused to be interviewed by the newspaper. He was said to have been a member of the Black and Tans, much dreaded by citizens of Ireland. Like the angry gangster, he did not wish to be interviewed.
For all things Irish I turn to Suzanne Morrison, office manager at Green Valley Disposal Co. She asked her Ireland-born parents Mary and Dan. They said that during World War I, British soldiers were killed by the thousands in the trenches of France. English soldiers patrolling in Ireland were assigned to the Front and were replaced by men taken from English prisons. Vicious and undisciplined, these men in black and tan prison garb committed atrocities against the Irish.
Knowland worked into his 80s and lived into his 90s, recalls Bob "Kirk" Kirkendall, owner of Kirk & Bob's Drive-In Pharmacy at 310 Los Gatos- Saratoga Road, the last home-owned pharmacy in town (now also gone).
Bob, the son of Clyde Kirkendall, recalls that Knowland, in his 80s, drove a Model-A Ford with no lights and that in winter he opened and closed his pharmacy according to daylight.
Bob says Ralph Duncan also operated a drugstore, just south of the theater, and lived into his 80s. It was the late W. John Whisenant who started Los Gatos Pharmacy in the 1920s and sold it to Clyde Kirkendall and Bill Vowels, thus the name Kirk and Bill's for the E. Main Street pharmacy.
Final owner of Los Gatos Pharmacy was Alden B. Johnson, who operated the firm at E. Main Street and High School Court. He closed the business three years ago. He and wife Carolyn continue to live in an upstairs apartment on E. Main Street, from where he had a short walk to work.
Fred Callis and his wife, Lucia, owned Green's Pharmacy on N. Santa Cruz Avenue for many years. They now reside at The Terraces of Los Gatos. Allan L. Beattie, final owner of Corner Drug Store at N. Santa Cruz and W. Main, has moved elsewhere.
Local pharmacists lived long lives that made a layman wonder what secrets they had learned. No secrets, really. Almost all were nonsmokers, none were obese and all knew the value of medicine.
John Baggerly is now semi-retired. This column is from the Los Gatos Weekly-Times archives.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
