January 10, 1991 — The outside sign rests quietly. The shelves are cleared of sundries. The 12 seats at the fountain, sit empty. Butler’s Pharmacy of Luray is closed and for Charles Butler, it is the end of one way of life and the beginning of another.
“I don’t intend to retire,” Butler said. “I intend to do some relief work. I’m not going to work 60 hours a week for six days a week like I have been doing.”
Butler moved from Staunton to Luray with his wife, Wanda, and two children, Karen and Chuck, in 1964, and bought into a pharmaceutical partnership in 1965 with William K. McKay.
There has been a drug store located in close proximity to the corner of Main and Broad streets in Luray for some 103 years —until now.
Butler said that small, independent pharmacies are on their way out, simply because of the “cost of doing business.”
~ From the public archives of the Page News and Courier
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