Milkshakes and Gunpowder
By Greg Shaw
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In the 1950s, the Lawton Pharmacy had a full-service soda fountain staffed by a soda fountain girl (1). The milkshakes were hand-dipped and made in stainless steel containers. They had sundaes, root beer floats, Green Rivers, chocolate sodas, banana splits, and of course, ice cream cones. Neatly wrapped in cellophane were sandwiches on the counter. Near the sandwiches was a curved stainless steel coffee warmer that always had a pot of very black coffee, though not nearly as fresh as their sandwiches. I always liked their fresh tuna sandwiches.
Ice cream cones were 10 cents for one scoop and 15 cents for two scoops. Dick Finn’s mother—Dick was my next-door neighbor and buddy—bristled at the price and would never let Dick pay 15 cents for two scoops. On the way to their summer home on Camano Island, Dick’s family would pass through Everett on Highway 99 and stop at a store that sold ice cream cones at 5 cents for one scoop and 10 cents for two scoops. Mrs. Finn was outraged that the Lawton Pharmacy would charge such an outlandish price in comparison. If I had learned from Dick’s mother, maybe I would have spent the winters in Hawaii like they did.
Fig. 1. Interior of the very busy Lawton Pharmacy. Roy and Irene Erickson wait on customers. Circa 1950. Courtesy of Cynthia Erickson.
The Lawton Pharmacy was located where the Seven Hills Running Store now occupies part of the building space at 3139 West Government Way. The pharmacy had a wide assortment of general merchandise: plastic model planes and car kits you assembled, gift items, sheet music, yo-yos, and all the things you might find in a pharmacy or dime store of the era.
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They even had a section of men's magazines—Fort Lawton, filled with lonely soldiers, was just half a mile away. I had peeked at the magazines a couple of times, but I was afraid I would be caught looking at them by Roy Erickson, the owner. Roy was the pharmacist and was often quiet. His wife, Irene, also worked at the store; she seemed like a driving force and made the store a fun place to shop. I did odd jobs for Roy and Irene.
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They owned several rental homes—I had helped paint one home, helped build fences, and even moved everything out of their home garage, which was stacked to the ceiling. The plan was to haul everything out, reorganize, and get rid of items not used. Irene left me to it, driving away in their white, late-model Pontiac with tailfins—it had the same engine later used in the Pontiac GTOs that started the muscle-car era. I rode in the car a few times, and every time Irene would stop and go, she would patch out, spinning the rear tires loudly. When Irene returned, the driveway was filled with the complete contents of the garage. Irene said, “Great job, go ahead and sweep the floor, and move everything back in.” I said, “You mean like it was before!” All she said was “yes” before walking up the stairs to the house. In truth, she was a very kind and giving person, and I liked working for the Ericksons.
Fig. 2. Roy and Irene Erickson standing proudly in front of their Lawton Pharmacy at 3139 West Government Way. Circa 1950. Courtesy of Cynthia Erickson.
Two of the Ericksons’ rental homes were located on the Magnolia side of the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, next to the railroad bridge. This property has now become a parking lot, since the Ericksons eventually sold it to the city. A handyman was building a fence for the two houses by the Locks; my job was to pre-stain the fence boards. I laid the sweet-smelling cedar fence boards on sawhorses four at a time and used a paint roller to apply the stain. Roy Erickson arrived around noon. He always brought me lunch from the pharmacy, a fresh tuna sandwich and a chocolate milkshake. Roy was a bit surprised: “You got a lot done. You are really fast.” He looked at the nearly empty five-gallon bucket and said, “I better get some more stain.” I was fast. But when I looked more closely at the boards, I saw there was as much stain on the grass as on them.
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Dick Finn and I also enjoyed exploring Fort Lawton, which is now Discovery Park. One day, we heard shots fired! Dick said, “That’s coming from the firing range.” We were about a quarter mile away; when we got there, soldiers were getting in the back of a large, drab olive truck. We waited until it drove away. Our excitement grew as we walked closer and saw bright brass shell casings all over the ground. We were like crows spotting something shiny. We stuffed our pockets until they were bulging. I said, “Let’s look for the bullet heads.” About two hundred yards away was a high sandbank, which is still there at the west end of the north parking lot, just south of Daybreak Star Cultural Center. We couldn’t see any bullet heads right away, so we found some small sticks and used them as digging tools. Soon, Dick said with excitement, “I found one!” Knowing our treasure hunt was possible, we started digging faster. We soon recovered around a dozen bullet heads. We found room for them in our overstuffed pockets. When we got home, we washed off the sand and had near-perfect bullet heads to go with the new-looking, shiny brass shell casings.
Fig. 3. Aerial of Fort Lawton and the firing range, which is the bare spot angled against the narrowest part of the peninsula. Image source: Google Earth.
Thomas Edison was my hero back then, and I had watched a black-and-white movie on television called Young Tom Edison. Mickey Rooney, a child star of that time, played young Edison, who sold newspapers on a train and turned an empty boxcar into an experimental chemical lab that eventually caught on fire. Now, that fire began burning inside me.
My parents had purchased an encyclopedia set by buying groceries and getting each book for 99 cents. It was okay. But the latest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica was the Google of the day. An entire set was very expensive back then—I believe around $700—and few families could afford to purchase one. You had to go to the local library or the school library to access it.
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I went and quickly looked up gunpowder and found the ingredients: potassium nitrate (saltpeter), sulfur, and charcoal. The percentages needed to make gunpowder were listed as well. I thought I had seen some of those names on the shelves at the Lawton Pharmacy. So, I went to look and found all three ingredients.
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Saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal have medicinal purposes, which is why the Lawton Pharmacy carried them. People would take sulfur by mouth for shortness of breath, allergies, swelling in the back of the throat (pharyngitis), high cholesterol, clogged arteries, menopause, and upper respiratory tract infections like the common cold. Sulfur seems to have antibacterial properties. It has also been used for acne. Charcoal could be used for kidney health, intestinal gas, diarrhea, deodorant, skin infections, and teeth whitening. Saltpeter was used historically for various diseases or conditions, especially asthma, but now it is rarely used medicinally except as a diuretic.
Despite the combined efforts of science, health education, and common sense, somehow the myth of the military adding saltpeter to food or beverages in basic training persists. The idea was that saltpeter reduced sexual desire in soldiers or prisoners—but there is no evidence to support this (2). It is primarily used as a fertilizer and as the main ingredient in gunpowder and fireworks. Timothy McVeigh, the bomber of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, perpetrated the deadliest act of homegrown terrorism in US history. After the bombing, McVeigh’s rented truck was found filled with potassium nitrate fertilizer (3).
After returning home from the Lawton Pharmacy with my threesome of chemicals, I combined them according to the proportions Britannica prescribed. I put the powder in an envelope and lit it on fire. Poof, an instantaneous burst of flame and smoke, just like what early photographers used to light their subjects. I had made gunpowder that worked. Now came the diabolical part—the shell casings and bullet heads would need to be recycled. It was only logical to fill the shiny brass shell casings with my homegrown gunpowder and force the bullet heads into the shell casings with a pair of pliers.
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Could the bullets be fired? The shell casings had used up the primer, which triggered the bullet. But I had a workaround, a steel pipe with a hole drilled in the side so a fusee (a railroad flare similar to a road flare) could be positioned next to the hole in the pipe, heating the bullet until it exploded. Dick Finn’s dad was a conductor riding in the caboose on the Portland-Seattle run for the Great Northern Railway, and he always had a few at home for such purposes as burning caterpillar nests.
Dick and I were ready. I used some bricks to hold the pipe in place. Dick lit the fusee, and I placed it next to the hole in the pipe. Boom, an explosion, and the bullet hit its mark, the outside end of my parents’ garage that needed painting. A few more live bullets were prepped and then fired at the garage. Soon, the thrill was gone, leaving only a few indentions in the end of the garage that needed paint—and now some wood filler.
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I eventually moved on to more constructive things; I built a go-kart and two boats. I drew the plans for the last boat in my mechanical drawing class at Queen Anne High School. It was 15 feet long, and I used mahogany wood for the ribs and mahogany plywood for the sides and bottom. Not long after it was completed, I went into the Army in the midst of the Vietnam War. The boat ended up stored on its side in the same garage we had shot. My parents could still get their car in and out, but it was a precarious fit, especially because of the 12-inch brass skeg on the bottom of the boat that faced the car. The skeg was wrapped with a rubber rug pad to prevent impalement of car or person.
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When I got out of the Army in December 1968, I went to the National Bank of Commerce in Magnolia and got my first loan, to buy an 80 horsepower Mercury outboard motor for my boat. It was fast and wild, and it kept up with the cars on the floating bridge. On waves and swells, the bow would sometimes rise to an almost 45-degree angle—as I was doing a safe 55 mph.
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But I soon realized the world had changed. I was about to change. The days of milkshakes and gunpowder were far behind me. Coming up was a new decade of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
Notes
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1. Monica Wooton. “Erickson’s Lawton Pharmacy.” Magnolia: Midcentury Memories. Magnolia Historical Society, 2020, pp. 25–27.
2. “Potassium nitrate.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 21 Mar. 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_nitrate.
3. “Oklahoma City bombing.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 31 Mar. 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing.