Abraham's Drug Store in Lacoochee

Lacoochee was a booming little town while the Cummer Cypress Lumber Company was in business. Besides the commissary, the business section of town consisted of wooden buildings that were joined side by side. I remember a grocery store , a pool hall (my aunt ran the pool hall in later years) and most of all, Abraham's Drug Store. Elias Abraham, affectionately known as Abe, owned and operated the drugstore.

Abe had the only telephone (as I remember.) I'm told he had all kinds of fun on April Fool's Day telling different people in town that they had a phone call. I have a picture of him and his wife in the drug store. When I was a little girl, it seemed so big. Now when I look at the picture, it seems so small.

Abe's daughter, Lorise, told me that my dad took a bag to Abe one day and asked him to save it for him. He stuck it where the ice cream dishes were. When my dad went back to get it, he told Abe that there was $17,000 in it. Abe said had he known he would have put it in the safe.

I was just turning four when we moved to Bradenton, but I remember hearing my parents say, "When the war's over, we're leaving Lacoochee." I came to the conclusion that Lacoochee must be a bad place to be. Looking back, they surely must have seen the handwriting on the wall. Lacoochee would not last forever. The lumber would eventually run out. They were correct. The town, which Cummer had built in 1922, began to diminish in size when the lumber mill closed in 1959. As I said before, many of the people moved to Dade City, but my parents had decided that they would move to Bradenton.

Some years later, there was a fire that destroyed all of the wooden buildings. Some buildings were replaced. Some of the houses that had been built for the employees were bought by them; others were demolished. Two of the houses now stand in the Pioneer Park in Dade City.