409 S Florida
This little building constructed around 1888 was originally occupied by John Sheppard’s Pharmacy. He took advantage of a new building technology to open the front of this pharmacy to bay breezes and abundant natural light. The structural support for the first floor of this building is composed entirely of cast iron, allowing for the large window openings. Unlike wrought iron which is malleable, cast iron is hard and strong. For a brief period of time, cast iron store fronts such as this sprung up across America.
As the nation connected cities by rail, merchants began to ply their wares in catalogs. Expanded markets encouraged manufacturers to pre-fabricate products. Iron foundries capitalized on the expanded customer base. They crafted molds, poured molten metal into them, and mass produced pre-fabricated cast iron building materials.
Even the cornice, spanning horizontally across the roof line, is sheet metal. The metal components for this building, like the one across the street, were ordered from a Mesker Brothers Iron Works catalog and shipped by rail from St. Louis, Missouri. In the late 1800s, America experienced an explosion of consumerism and the store fronts along Pensacola’s Palafox Street reflect that trend.
Today this portion of South Palafox is vibrant and trendy, but in the early 1900s there were several crimes recorded at this location. In 1905, due increased criminal activity, city officials passed an ordinance prohibiting the sale of cocaine without a doctor’s prescription. A year later, in defiance of this ordinance, two Sheppard’s pharmacy workers were arrested for selling cocaine. Four years later, another pharmacist, John Epps, was attacked here by an unknown assailant. The attacker did not take any money or merchandise but the left Epps with a broken knee cap and two slashes on his face.
