1948: a fountain inside a pharmacy
Margaret Hollis opened a nine-stool fountain inside her brother's pharmacy on Bluff Street in the summer of 1948. The first ledger entry is in pencil: forty-two pounds of cream drops, cooled on the marble she had cut for the purpose, sold out by Saturday closing. Her partner, Albert Fenn, worked the soda taps and kept the recipe cards in his coat pocket.
1962: the counter becomes the destination
By the early sixties, families were driving in from Galena and Platteville for a lime rickey and a paper sack of birch beer barrels. The pharmacy closed in 1971; the fountain did not. Albert's son kept the kettles running through the decades when American candy moved to extrusion lines and shrink wrap, and the shop quietly became one of the last places in the upper Midwest pulling marshmallow on a hook.
Today: the same six stages
The third generation runs the counter now, with two pullers and one packer. Four copper kettles, one marble slab, a hook for marshmallow and a drop roller for the hard lots. The batch cards are still written by hand and stamped on the lid of every tin, and the flavor houses still follow the sequence Margaret wrote out in pencil.
A working shop, not a museum. Visitors are welcome during counter hours. Kettle work happens on the two days we are closed, so the marble is usually cool and quiet when you walk in — but the tins are packed and the ledger is open if you want to see how a lot is numbered.
Talking to the counter about a gift
The most useful thing a gift buyer can tell us is the memory the gift is meant to sit beside. A boardwalk shop, a grandmother's candy dish, a drugstore stool, a tin that later held sewing buttons — those details shape an assortment far better than a flavor list does. Write to us with the occasion, the number of households involved, and any ingredient restrictions, and we will answer with two or three honest suggestions.
- For milestone tins, tell us the date you need it and we will pull from the nearest kettle run.
- For care packages, tell us the climate it is travelling to; we will favor the glassy hard lots.
- For tasting boxes, tell us whether the recipient is a cream-and-malt person or a bark-and-barrel person.
- For anything involving an allergy, read the ingredient and craft notes first, then write to us.
Who we are, in one line each
- Counter keeper
- Runs the marble, signs the batch cards, argues about vanilla.
- Head puller
- Twenty-two years on the hook, forty-one-minute cool times, no shortcuts.
- Packer
- Parchment, paper shavings, and a stamped lid on every tin that leaves.
- Ledger keeper
- Keeps the flavor houses straight and the batch codes honest.
“People do not come back for candy they can buy anywhere. They come back because a tin of cream drops tastes like the afternoon they were twelve years old.”
One small housekeeping note
Parking on Bluff Street is metered until five. The shop dog is friendly but will not share. Tins travel better in a cool car than a warm trunk, and the same goes for the candy inside them.