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>A Tour of Richardson's Historic Heart
Author photo taken January 2022.
In December 1901, Sam P. Harben, son of Dr. R. P. Harben, and publisher of The Richardson Echo, purchased this site, on which there was alrady a drugstore in a small frame building, from Dr. W. E. Rucker, who had acquired the property from the H.&T.C. in 1898. It's been said that a man named Carl Allen operated the drugstore before Harben bought it and changed the name to R. P. Harben & Son, with Sam running the drugstore and his father practicing medicine in a back room. In time, Harben's Drug Store, as it was more popularly known, became a well-known Richardson institution. On April 11, 1911, The Dallas Morning News reported that the Harbens were building a "large and commodious brick structure" on the site, to replace the original frame structure. That's the building that's still there today, now occupied by The Tavern on Main Street, and with the word "BAR" over the door, which would almost certainly have horrified Sam Harben, a staunch supporter of Prohibition! In the 1950s, it was a Pizza parlor.
Sam Harben (and others) said that the first issue of The Richardson Echo, the newspaper he published and edited for over five decades, was printed here, with the date October 12, 1900, but the fact that Dallas County deed records show that he did not yet own the building, casts doubt on that story. He also said that he bought the property from Carl Allen, but the deed shows the seller was Dr. W. E. Rucker. There is no record of Carl Allen, who spent most of his life in nearly Collin County, buying or selling property anywhere in Dallas County. No doubt these discrepencies are due to the passage of time and the fading of memory.
Harben's Drugstore, circa 1912. Courtesy Richardson Public Library.
Below: The historic heart of Richardson, from an 1878 map.
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