The McGill Drug Store is located at 11 Fourth Street in McGill, Nevada was placed on the National Register on August 17, 1998. The store is owned by the White Pine Public Museum, which plans to develop it as a museum.
The following information comes from the NRHP files: (
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The town of McGill was established between 1907 and 1909 as a company town by the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company. McGill Drug sits on a long, narrow lot, oriented west to east, and is centrally located in the commercial district along the east side of Fourth Street. McGill Drug is a key element of the streetscape, retaining its historic character despite modernization of the front facade.
McGill Drug is a rectangular wood-framed structure of a simple vernacular commercial style. The exterior walls of the building are covered in corrugated steel on the north, south, and east facades. Historic photographs indicate that this is the original surface treatment and that many of the early commercial buildings in McGill had corrugated siding, as well as roofs. This construction material continues to dominate the commercial buildings in McGill today. The use of corrugated metal for walls and roofs is indicative of the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company's economic policy for quick and inexpensive construction of its town. There was also a Nevada law,passed in the late nineteenth century, that required commercial buildings in mining towns to be built of fire proof materials. Corrugated metal nailed to a wooden frame was one of the most common methods of meeting this requirement. Except for the addition of a cement block furnace room at the rear, McGill Drug consists entirely of sheet-metal-on-frame construction. The shallow-pitched gabled roof has an exterior brick chimney between the east wall and shed addition, and is covered in sheets of corrugated steel. The building's foundation is concrete, with a shallow crawl space beneath the floors.
The front (west) facade of McGill Drug is currently sheathed in horizontal aluminum siding, installed in 1962, which obscures the original surface and gives a uniform appearance to a facade extended to cover a shed addition on the north side. The date of this addition, as well as a shed addition on the rear, are unknown. A wooden porch and overhang, constructed during its early years, have been removed and subsequently replaced by a corrugated metal awning. An oval neon sign reading, Rexall Drugs, extends outward from the center of the false front, above the awning.
Entrance to the store is through an aluminum-frame glass door, recessed between two large aluminum-frame display windows (not original) . The entrance now is off-set in the front facade, but prior to the construction of the shed addition on the north, it was centrally placed. Additional fenestration consists of two horizontal six-by-six wood sash sliders, and a single 12-pane fixed-wood window on the center of the south facade. All three of these windows are located in the high side of the facade.
Shed additions were added to the rear and north sides of the building at some unknown time. The north addition extended the floor space of the retail area, and the rear addition served as additional storage. In 1962, the false front was replaced and extended to incorporate the north addition, and included a false stone bulkhead and aluminum siding. This gives the entrance the appearance of being off-set, but it originally was placed centrally between the two large windows. A concrete block furnace room was added to the rear of the shed addition on the east (rear) facade. These types of enlargements and modifications are typical of the changes made to the downtown commercial buildings, and have only a minimal effect on the historic character of these buildings.
The interior of McGill Drug is in absolute contrast to the exterior. Approximately 80 percent of the interior fixtures are original to the period of construction. This includes wooden built-in cabinets lining the north and south walls, and free-standing wooden display cases asymmetrically positioned about the interior. A ca. 1930s soda fountain and seven cushioned stools are on the immediate left upon entry. A prescription counter and pharmaceutical storage cabinets are located in the rear of the interior. Fluorescent fixtures have replaced original incandescent lighting, although the windows along the south and west walls provide adequate natural lighting during daylight hours.
The interior walls of the store are hardboard panels nailed to the wooden frame, with wooden strips hiding the gaps between the panels. Although the metal-on-frame construction requires minimal skill or time, workmanship can be seen in the interior furnishings. The original display cases that line the walls present detailed moldings, marble toe panels, and decorative hardware. The soda fountain, which was installed in ca. 1930 to replace the original one damaged by fire, has an elaborate front of ceramic tiles, and a back bar with leaded glass windows.
In addition to the interior appointments, more than 30,000 items of merchandise (including pharmaceuticals) dating to 1979 and before, remain in the store. Also remaining in the store from the time of Mr. Culbert’s death (the last owner of the store) were a variety of records. These include all corporation records, inventory invoices, sales records, prescription records, as well as original county birth records, some of the earliest predating 1920.