The Upjohn Pharmacy was an iconic building on Main Street USA, at Disneyland from 1955 to 1970. This building was the result of a friendship between Walt Disney himself and Donald Gilmore, who was the chairman of the Upjohn Company at that time. Both these men had seasonal homes in Palm Springs, California, and met and established their friendship there. Walt Disney was looking for corporate sponsors and lessees at Disneyland. These various things between the two men allowed their partnership at Disneyland to happen naturally.
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The pharmacy this unique partnership created was an intricately detailed recreation of a Victorian-era (late 1800s/early 1900s) apothecary store. Even the items displayed inside the building were authentic and carefully collected by Dr. A. Garrard MacLeod. MacLeod was a physician who worked for Upjohn and who just happened to be passionate about collecting medical antiques. Thanks to MacLeod’s contribution, the store featured more than a thousand unique antique items of the medical profession.
This antique, “going back in time” look of the store was contrasted with an exhibit in the back room of the store that displayed what modern-day Upjohn was doing. This exhibit had lighted displays of Upjohn’s current products, as well as information about the company.
The Main Street USA of Disneyland was designed to recreate a “typical American Main Street” of the 1890 to 1910 era, and the Upjohn pharmacy was a perfect addition to this tableau. It fit right in, thanks to the careful historical research of designer Will Burtin. Burtin was a renowned designer of his day, someone Walt Disney was lucky to get on the Upjohn project. Burton did intricate research of existing apothecary shops that were built around the targeted 1890 to 1910 time period.
The result was a completely authentic-looking shop that older people who had been children in those late Victorian/early Edwardian times could walk into and feel like they had walked back into their childhoods. It was designed to create nostalgia for the older people while teaching the younger ones about the past by showing them the things their grandparents and great-grandparents would have enjoyed in their youth.
The pharmacy was not a genuine working pharmacy but a tribute to the Victorian/Edwardian-era apothecary shops of the past. The building was used as a walk back in time, as well as a museum for medical antiquities. Most visitors to the park loved it and found it quite charming. It was a highly popular building on Main Street USA. The only merchandise it carried were postcards and vitamins, which were given to guests free of charge.
Uniquely, Upjohn’s Pharmacy gave glass bottles filled with little round, orange vitamins to guests for free. Park visitors would take these glass bottles home with them and actually use the vitamins. The glass bottles themselves became collector’s items, with many people making frequent and regular trips to Disneyland just to get another glass bottle. Even when Upjohn’s Pharmacy was still at the park, these bottles were highly sought-after items by Disney enthusiasts.
The pharmacy also had a glass display window in the front of it, for passersby on the sidewalk outside to look at, with the purpose of perhaps luring them inside to take a look at the curiosities within the building. This window display included old-fashioned Chinese medicines, teas, and remedies, as well as an infamous ivory figurine of a naked lady in a reclining position. It scandalized countless overprotective moms and grandmas of the time, but it actually had a unique historical purpose.
In those past times that the pharmacy honored, women were taught to be modest and, therefore, were often too shy to disrobe for a doctor. This naked female figurine allowed women to point to the areas on the figurine that corresponded to the areas where they were experiencing the ailments that brought them to the doctor’s office in the first place.
Upjohn’s Pharmacy was located at the southeast corner of the Main Street intersection. It was the halfway point between the castle and the railroad station. If you go to Disneyland today, you will find a jewelry shop in the place where Upjohn’s was once located. The modern space also touches the Carnation Café patio. It’s easy to find if you are familiar with Disneyland and its topography.
When Upjohn’s was in its full Disney glory, there were always two real pharmacists manning the shop. These pharmacists shared their expertise on the field of medicine, as well as answered questions from park guests who went into the shop. Among the medical antiquities displayed there was an item that particularly appealed to children—a glass jar filled with live leeches, an homage to the days when leeches were considered actual and useful medical tools.
The University of Arizona’s Pharmacy Museum now houses the antique items that were on display at Upjohn’s Pharmacy.
So, with Upjohn’s Pharmacy being such a popular attraction on Main Street USA at Disneyland and so fondly remembered by older park visitors today, why is it not still there? Why did Upjohn’s Pharmacy leave Disneyland? One reason is that its creation was mostly due to the friendship between Walt Disney and Donald Gilmore. After Walt crossed to the other side, there wasn’t the passion or interest from the Upjohn company to keep the partnership with the Walt Disney Company. It was a sponsored shop, and the interest in maintaining the partnership just wasn’t there anymore.
A second reason was that around the end of the 1960s, which was also the time Walt Disney crossed to the other side, the Walt Disney Company was not interested in pursuing sponsored shops anymore. It also wanted to drop park attractions that were primarily owned by outside companies (something the park pursued early in its history). Moving forward, Disney only wanted shops and attractions over which they had complete ownership. Basically, the company wanted to keep all of its goods and services in-house.
These two things led to both companies losing interest in keeping Upjohn’s Pharmacy. The popular and much-beloved shop closed in 1970. A clock shop took its place. While the clock shop did have a sponsor in the Elgin company, it was a wholly owned Disney property.