Renfro's Pharmacy
Saugus, California

[FULL VIEW][CLOSEUP]

Undated real photo postcard of Renfro Drugs (Renfro's Pharmacy) in Saugus, mid/late 1920s.

The people are unidentified, although the man at the viewer's right is presumably owner V.A. Renfro, who was one of the founding members of the short-lived Newhall Chamber of Commerce in 1923.

This building stood immediately south of the Saugus Café.

DATE CLUES:

The street appears to be paved, although it is difficult to be certain. San Fernando Road was first paved in 1926. The original blacktop in this area basically came right up to the buildings, and there were no sidewalks. The sign advertising watches, to the viewer's left of the people, is promoting Ingersoll pocketwatches, which predated the compay's ads for wristwatches. Ingersoll appears to have used this particular Victorian-style logo around 1903-1905. Newspapers are stacked up below the sign for watches; they seem too thick to be the Newhall Signal, which started as a one-sheet in 1919. They're probably from Los Angeles (the Examiner was popular). Signs for "FILMS" (to be used in Kodak box-type "Brownie" cameras) make sense for the 1910s and 1920s. The cigarette ad in the far-right window, with the female figure holding the sign, appears to be for Camel cigarettes, which went on the market in 1913 and were the first modern cigarettes. Closer to the people in the photograph is a sign for Cremo cigars, which fell out of favor by 1929 when the company was accused of using saliva in its Cuban cigar-rolling process — prompting the slogan, "There's no spit in Cremo cigars." Finally, the woman on the left can almost be heard saying, "This isn't the 1910s anymore." Nor is it the 1930s. Hemlines came above the knee only briefly from about 1926-1928.

RPPC donated to the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society by Patricia Cook Bennett, whose parents, Pearl and Walt cook, owned the Ridgeview Dairy.

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HS9023a: 4800 dpi jpeg from original RPPC