The end of an era

CELINA - Bair Pharmacy will close its doors for good on Wednesday, just shy of 150 years in business.

The arrival of big pharmacy competitors Walmart and CVS, along with changes in the insurance industry, made operating the independent pharmacy too great of a challenge, current owner Tom Prenger explained.

"It was too hard to stay afloat to make a go of it. And the headaches of ownership, dealing with government regulations and the insurance companies, it's just not worth it," he said.

At 6 p.m. Wednesday, Prenger will close the shop for the last time. He hopes his customers' transition will be smooth. Customer files will be moved to CVS that night and calls to Bair Pharmacy will be transferred to CVS for 90 days.

Increased time demands were another factor in Prenger's decision, he said. He is the store's only pharmacist and has shouldered a heavier workload in recent years.

"I've had great pharmacy employees through the years, but now we're back to square one, where I'm the only pharmacist. And that's really the only way this store could make ends meet because our volume has dwindled due to mail-order competition and Walmart," he said.

He also felt the long hours weren't fair to his family, he said.

"I have grandkids now and I've missed enough with my own children while they were growing up," Prenger added.

Bair Pharmacy is not the first store to feel the pinch of modern economics, he said. Since Prenger took over in 1995, he's seen other independent drug stores close such as Brown's, another Celina pharmacy, as well as independent pharmacies in Rockford, St. Henry and Van Wert.

"Our volume increased as those stores closed," Prenger said. "But the pharmacy benefit managers who control the pricing of medications and what they pay you, that's changed through the years. Now there are some things we fill that we actually get paid less than what the medication costs us."

Prenger started at Bair Pharmacy fresh out of college in 1981, choosing the job from among three offers.

"Being an intelligent college graduate, I took the one with the least pay," he joked. "But I wanted to stay in the area."

Prenger purchased the pharmacy in 1995 from Paul Arnold.

"I could not have asked for a better pharmacist, a guy that was more interested in the people and a more good-natured guy than Tom," Arnold said.

The store has long been a downtown staple. For decades, customers have been greeted by name and crackers and candy canes have been passed out to children accompanying their parents on errands.

The original business opened at another site in 1866 and was owned by George Zay, Arnold said. In 1894, a fire destroyed the building along with half of downtown Celina. The drugstore was moved to the pharmacy's current location that same year.

In 1893, the business was purchased by Charles and Rochester Wyckoff. Rochester Wyckoff owned the business until 1922, except for a short interval in 1907 when he sold his share to Henry Puthoff and started an unsuccessful dredge venture on the Mississippi River. Wyckoff later partnered with Robert Ross.

In 1946, Willis "Bill" Bair began working at the store after returning home from the service. In 1948, he purchased the business from Ross and changed the name to Bair Pharmacy.

The next owner, Arnold, began working at the pharmacy after graduating in 1955 and bought it in 1973, on Bair's birthday.

"Bill was a great boss," Arnold said. "Bill was getting older and maybe a bit more cantankerous, but we got along fine. It was just a good place to work."

Arnold remembers a different time in the pharmacy's history when only two prescription cards were offered and the store had a wide, retail selection. The Christmas season was the store's busiest time.

"The pharmacies in town were about the only places in town you could get cosmetics," Arnold said. "It seemed like the whole town came down the day after Thanksgiving."

People came to expect exceptional personal service from Bair Pharmacy, Arnold said, who boasted he went above and beyond to meet his customers' needs. During the blizzard of 1978, he forged his way through the snow to get medication to the sheriff's department. Someone was then able to deliver the drugs to Wabash on a snowmobile.

"I know these days, if you were to call after hours at a big pharmacy chain, you wouldn't get someone on the phone," Arnold said.

Closing the store won't be easy, Prenger said. He and his employees are hoping for a snowstorm on Tuesday so they don't have to come in.

"We're going to miss all our customers terribly," he said.