Lorenz General Store was located where Safeway Pharmacy is in 2007

Lorenz General Store

1891 Block 3   |     Building to the east   |     Building to the south   |     to main menu


Nicholas Lorenz started a general store in Coquille in 1887. The store, situated down by the river, stocked essentials such overalls, gumboots, flour and sugar, kerosene, candles.

Knowlton's Drug Store was known for carrying a wide selection of items, including school books, writing tablets, lead pencils, and ink. In later years, Mr. Knowlton added Kodak cameras and accessories to his inventory.

The image below shows an Ad run in the 1916 Polk's Directory for Knowlton's.



Mr. Knowlton, our new druggist who [bought] Judge Nosler out, arrived New Year's and is opening a complete new stock of drugs.
Coquille Valley Herald, January 7, 1890

1891 Block 4   |     Building to the left   |     Building to the right   |     to main menu

Private information from Marilee
from Rietman.txt

By Marilee Miller (Rietman, p1)

   Camilla Rietman's grandfather, Nicholas Lorenz, his wife and six children, started a general store in Coquille City" in 1887. The store, situated down by the river, stocked essentials such overalls, gumboots, flour and sugar, kerosene, candles.

   When Frank Morse brought in the first electric plant in the early 1900s, a lot of things in downtown Coquille changed. But in the small capacity outfit, at first the lights could be "off" as often as they were "on."

   After a time, Nicholas Lorenz' son Henry bought out both his father's and brother Edward's interests. Henry's daughter Camilla (now Rietman) was born in 1902. Camilla credits her father with "really sparking the store's growth." Perhaps it's that word "sparking" which reminds Rietman of one of the great fears of the early 1900s. That was the ringing of the fire bell.

   "The family would always be greatly alarmed," she explains. "We had a bell that clanged downtown (from the city hall). The thought of fire frightened anyone who owned property or business shops. Those old frame buildings, dry in summer -- there were many fires in Coquille.

   In the 30's, Fred Lorenz, Camilla's brother, took over the Lorenz Store, which by that time had moved over to First Street, and had become a department store.

   "Fred had a lovely store," says Camilla. "It was considered a nice place to get ladies' merchandize and a nice line of shoes. Even today, people tell me: 'I look back with a great deal of findness on the days when I shopped with your father, and then brother.' The Lorenz Store wanted to give good value."

   Rietman still treasures the memories of childhood. "I had a gentle, dear father. I don't think he would have ever harmed anyone. Mama was the disciplinarian. If mother said something, we knew we didn't cross it! And then Father backed her up. Also, we were an ordinary family. We children weren't lavished on. If anything was left from yesterday, it was used today. Mother could pinch the pennies till she made them squeal."

   Camilla jokes about being a "homebody" who, even in High School years, just wanted to be where her mother was. When the girl asked permission to go to a dance, Mrs. Lorenz replied: "Yes, you may go. But I will be there to see that you get home." (It never embarrassed Camilla for her mother to come to the dances, any more than it did when she rode the riverboats with the kids, going down to Bandon for the basketball games. She liked her mother's company.) And, to please her mother, Camilla Lorenz wore braids --long enough to sit on -- right through high school, even though by then, "braids were out". Later, when she did finally have her hair cut to the latest style, she had to console her heartbroken mother. But of course, mother had to reconcile herself to the "new look."

   Rietman wishes every child might have the happiness, the gentlesness, the love and kindness her family showed. If this happened, she doesn't think there'd "be the problems of today." Of those years, she says: "That was just a dear time in my life. I suppose I had my problems, but I don't remember any."