Fincher’s Corner Drug Store and the Lites Pharmacy Building including the Anchor Bar

1891 to present

For over 100 years, Pentwater had a pharmacy on the corner of 3rd Street and Hancock. In the 1880s, Frances W. Fincher Sr. owned the Corner Pharmacy and, following the disastrous 1889 Hancock Street fire, reconstructed the building using Pentwater creme bricks. By the 1900s, Francis was also a banker, and his sister Theodocia Fincher Montgomery married Pentwater lawyer Robert Montgomery, who became the Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. In 1910, President Taft appointed Montgomery as Chief Judge of the new U.S. Court of Customs, and Fincher's other sister, Hattie Fincher Ayers, a member of Pentwater High School's first graduating class, joined her sister Theodocia in Washington D.C. where Hattie's husband Charles Ayer clerked for his brother-in-law's court. Frances was close to his sisters and spent much time visiting Washington D.C. and passed away during a visit to the city in 1926.

J. (Jeremiah) Layton Congdon apprenticed at the Corner Pharmacy with Fincher. Congdon, an orphan living in Pentwater with his uncle Dr. W.E. Dockery, studied pharmacy in Ohio and worked in Kalamazoo in 1890, where he liked to bicycle with friends to Gull Lake. Congdon returned to Pentwater in 1892 and he and his wife Jen purchased the building of his early apprenticeship along with Fincher's drug stock. A civic leader, Congdon served on the Pentwater village council and as village assessor.

Failing health forced Congdon to retire between 1935 and 1939, and in 1940, it became Mac's Pharmacy and the Jack Johnson Drug Store in 1947, both Rexall Drugstores. By 1949, Ken and Georgia Lites continued the franchise opening the Lites' Pharmacy which also sold general merchandise, Pentwater souvenirs, and Park Dairy ice cream.

By 1932, the Antler Bar occupied the north side of the building, now over 90 years in business. The Ludington Daily News chronicled the Antler bowling team’s hot winning streak in 1953, deadlocked for first place in the Pentwater Men's Bowling Championship. The competition included the Art Ardreys, the Building Supply team, Millers Tavern, Pentwater Lumber, and Parnell's Plumbers. In 1963, the Ludington Daily News reported that Anna Myers had purchased the Antler Bar and initiated extensive exterior and interior building renovations. The paper also reported that in 1971, an Antler Bar owner named Don Baker requested permission to build a balcony cantilevered four feet over the Village Park. Colleen Clutchey Plummer and David Plummer had operated the Antler Bar for 35 years when Colleen died in 2016. Family ownership of the thriving tavern continues.

The building's south-side drugstore days have ended. Susan and Jay Bryan opened a general store there in 1995, which became a discount store owned by Jay Guilliam in 2003.