Jigsaw for August 9, 2026: https://puzzles.curioustorian.com/gills-store-norwich
This photograph of Gill’s Store, taken in the 1930s, is a favorite of mine. Gill’s took its name from the Gill family, who ran it until Russell Newcomb bought the store in 1955 and renamed it the North Country Store. It finally closed its doors in the early 1970s. The building has been an attorney’s office for years now; I have driven past it thousands of times.
Gill’s looks so inviting here: the two Coca-Cola signs, the Tydol pump on the Main Street side, a delivery truck pulled up to the curb on a bare winter day. But it was only recently that I really looked, and noticed these words on the third Coca-Cola sign: Fountain Service. Gill’s had a soda fountain.
I would be very happy if Norwich still had a soda fountain.
That little sign pulled a hometown “special place” out of memory, and it was not even Norwich I was remembering.
An earlier winter day at the same corner,
a horse-drawn sleigh at the door, the Tydol pumps already in.
The corner store
I lived a few short blocks from a corner store in Johnstown, NY. It was run by a stern older woman whose signature line, delivered to the whole line of boys and girls waiting to buy penny candy, was, “And yours?”
That candy case was a wonder. “Red hot” silver dollars, two for a penny. Little Coca-Cola bottles made out of wax, with a swallow of colored syrup inside. Wax lips and wax mustaches. Bubble gum. Candy buttons, those little dots stuck to a strip of paper. Licorice pipes. On and on.
On the other side of the aisle from the candy was the deep cooler, the chest kind you reached down into, and it held popsicles and fudgsicles and ice cream sandwiches, and those little cones topped with nuts and chocolate that we called Drumsticks.
To the left of the entry, there were comic books and magazines hanging from a wire. Mad Magazine, for instance. And down on the bottom row were the motorcycle magazines, which we were admonished not to look at, but...
But the crown jewel of the place was a three seat soda fountain with a marble counter. When you ordered a soda she squeezed out the syrup, added the carbonated water, handed you a straw, and you sat right there and drank it. The true attraction, though, was being able to order a flavored Coke. A chocolate Coke. A cherry Coke. A lemon Coke. And my favorite, a vanilla Coke.
And let us not forget the baseball cards, and the football cards.
There were plate glass windows on either side of the door.
The store had a name, Wiesner's, and it turns out I am not the only one who remembers it. It was opened in 1932 by the family who built the house and store, and it ran until 1970, when the woman who kept it retired after thirty-eight years behind the counter. Years later her daughter-in-law, Joanne Wiesner, who had worked that fountain herself, wrote of the place: "Many a cherry coke and vanilla coke crossed that fountain." I could not have said it better.
What was on the shelves
Look closely at Gill’s and you see it was a drug store as much as a grocery, the painted arrow behind the counter says as much: DRUGS one way, GROCERIES the other. The shelves are a catalog of the American mid-century pantry. Oxydol and Lux and Dreft and Ivory Flakes for wash day. Kellogg’s Rice Krispies and Pep, Quaker Puffed Oats and Puffed Wheat, and Swans Down cake flour for the breakfast table and the baking. A rack of Willson sun-glasses by the register. Ex-Lax and Band-Aid and a long glass case of patent-medicine bottles for whatever ailed you. A case of cigars and a wall of cigarettes. Bread and baked goods stacked under the counter. And out front, Tydol gasoline and Veedol anti-freeze to keep the cars running through a Vermont winter.
When Russell Newcomb bought the store in 1955 and renamed it the North Country Store, the shelves modernized, Star-Kist tuna, canned goods with the prices marked right on them, a beverage cooler. But having a neighbor behind the counter? That stayed the same..
The storefront with its signs “brought back to life.”
The delivery truck is a 1938 Chevrolet.
Gill’s about 1940, a Chevrolet coupe out front. Colors added for illustration
Bonus Puzzle: https://puzzles.curioustorian.com/gills-store-1940
Inside Gill’s, the drug-and-grocery shelves and men at the counter
Play the puzzles again: the storefront in black and white at puzzles.curioustorian.com/gills-store-norwich, and Gill’s in color at puzzles.curioustorian.com/gills-store-1940.
Zoom in on the full-resolution images: the storefront, the winter sleigh, the color restoration, Gill’s about 1940, and inside the store.
More Upper Valley stores:
Thanks for your support, as always,
Cameron Cross
Sources: Photographs courtesy of the Norwich Historical Society. Store history from the Society’s records (Wendell and Eileen Gill, previous owners; Russell Newcomb bought the store in 1955 and renamed it the North Country Store). Tydol / Flying-A background: Tide Water Associated Oil Company.
Cam, I loved reading this post. I remember Gill's store very well. I loved the ice cream cones at the soda bar. And nothing was self-serve. You had to give a list and the clerk brought the item to the counter. It was quite an innovation when Merrills' store had self serve and you could pick your groceries out yourself!
We did the puzzle and I discovered a funny thing. Two pieces wouldn't go in - that's never happened to us before. I'll send a screen shot to your email address so you can see.
Was this across Beaver Meadow from the Norwich Inn? How did a small town like Norwich support two stores (Dan and Whits)? and if you are from Johnstown, do you remember the candy shop across from the Gloversville public library? Keep up the good work.