(828) 526-0173 | [email protected] | Copyright 2024 – All Rights Reserved.
95 and Thriving
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: March 2024
Through the decades, a local landmark has dispensed wisdom and compassionate care.
The staff of Highlands Pharmacy with owner Sherry Sims
This past December, Sherry Sims and her chorus of customers sang “Happy Birthday” to a cherished, Highlands nonagenarian.
Can you guess of whom they sang? A hint: Over the years, the 95-year-old celebrant got around town – four times, to be exact, which was phenomenal, since the fella has a world of heart, but not a leg to stand on.
Give up? Our birthday boy, born in 1928, was christened: The Highlands Pharmacy.
Over the years, through four owners (Charlie Anderson, Doc Mitchell, Jack Alexander and Sherry Sims), the Highlands Pharmacy has outlived all other local drug stores.
How? By being the finest healer of bandaged knees, the common sneeze, and the latest disease. Not bad for an almost centenarian, huh?
The Highlands Pharmacy is truly a survivor.
“Mail-order pharmacy competition and gigantic drugstore chains make it more and more difficult to stay viable,” says Sherry. But she and her staff (and all owners/staff since 1928) have a secret weapon that few giants possess: a phenomenal work ethic.
She says, “My staff labors hard – there is a lot of after-hours work that customers never see. 95 years of service would not have been possible without the multitudes of great people who have worked at Highlands Pharmacy!”
Angela Lewis Jenkins, author of Highlands, North Carolina: The Early Years, and granddaughter of Charles J. Anderson, shares the following: “In 1923 my grandfather moved to Highlands from Westminster, South Carolina. Soon after arriving, he married 5th generation Highlander, Mattie Angela Hall. They purchased a tract of land on South 4th Street, and in 1928, Charlie built Highlands Drugstore. In those days, Anderson was permitted to fill prescriptions. but the laws soon changed. He hired a pharmacist, Mr. Clarence Mitchell, also from Westminster. During the 1940s, transit buses regularly came through Highlands from Asheville or Atlanta with the drug store serving as the terminal. In 1942, Anderson sold the drug store to Clarence Mitchell. In 1971, Mitchell sold the drug store to pharmacist Jack Alexander, and in 1992, Alexander sold it to current owner, Sherry Sims.”
Credit for the historic photos goes to Angie Jenkins and her delightful historic collection. For further info, consult Ran Shaffner’s Heart of the Blue Ridge, or visit Highlands Historical Society Museum. Or just go to the good ol’ Highlands Pharmacy itself. It’s alive and forever-kickin’ – legs or no legs.
