For two centuries—from the mid 1760s through the mid 1960s—Rockville’s bustling main street was the center of commercial and civic life in the crossroads town.  Corner lots provided venues for prominent buildings, such as Daniel F. Owens’ handsome two-story brick pharmacy on the corner of Montgomery Avenue across from the Courthouse.  In 1902, R. W. “Willie” Vinson bought out the business, moving into the building with the rooftop mortar and pestle and buying it eight years later. 

 In 1914 “Doc” Vinson ordered a soda fountain from the Liquid Carbonic Co. of New York, bringing to the small town of Rockville the delights of fountain drinks and malteds.  The Sentinel noted that  “Our popular druggist…has placed a soda water fountain in his store which is not surpassed by anything of its kind in Washington city…for beauty, cost and modern style.”  It was massive, arriving in numerous pieces of carved wood and marble.  The back bar had a large arch carved with vines and figures surrounding a mirror supported by twin Corinthian columns.  Behind the front bar were the ice cream compartments, syrup containers, seltzer water spigots, jars, a sink, copper and porcelain fittings.  It was both an architectural marvel and a place to socialize, though only for white citizens in the era of segregation.    

Vinson stood behind the fountain for less than a decade.  Perhaps he didn’t like dishing up sundaes.  He did enjoy his customers—kids who stopped in after school, lawyers who negotiated before appearing in court, residents who used the public phone until they could afford their own, those needing “medicines” unavailable in other forms during Prohibition, President Woodrow Wilson picking up his supply of horehound drops as he came through town. 

Vinson enlisted the help of Russell Bogley, who clerked and delivered for 34 years, but even Bogley couldn’t convince him to regularly bill his customers or update his store.  As one wag noted, Vinson did not actively resist modernization; he just never got around to changing the place.  And the soda fountain worked fine as a catch-all piece of furniture.      

When Vinson died in 1958 at the age of 86, his family sold the landmark to Wolfson Properties, which replaced it with a new building that in turn fell to Urban Renewal in the 1960s.  The soda fountain went to the Kelly farm in Darnestown, where it remained after its donation to Peerless Rockville in 1986.  Peerless brought it to Rockville in 1989, partly restoring the wood and banking funds until a permanent home could be found.  In 2006, Peerless agreed with Montgomery County to place the fountain in the new Rockville library.  Dell Corporation meticulously restored and installed it along with related artifacts in the first floor meeting room—once again an architectural marvel and source of entertainment in our town.