Oldest Store Museum — Attraction in Saint Augustine

If this complex is easy enough to drive by and not give a second thought, the oldest store is easy enough to walk by and ignore.

If you like history, you will love stepping into this place. Like the Jail, we were greeted outside by Rubie. Her name suits her personality because she is a brilliant shimmering gem. This woman at the end of the day had more energy and enthusiasm than I do some mornings.

This is also an interactive show and tell experience. Ruby encourages questions and interaction. She was really good about pointing out the different items in the store and helping us make the connection to products that exists today. She educates partially by Socratic method, asking questions especially of the little ones, if they see names they recognize, or see objects they think they understand what they do. If you have folks in your party who seem so fit, you can learn to operate a giant coffee machine, a butter churn, and a really unique and possibly dangerous device designed to pick the kernels of hard corn off the cob.

But really, that is just the appetizer and not even the meat and potatoes. Many people know about how Coca-Cola got its name and what the original stimulant ingredient was. Ruby takes the time to share how many different products have interesting things in them that might've been viewed as medicinal at the time (come to think it, some things like alcohol are still viewed that way).

When the tour in the store had concluded, I was prepared to thank her because just like with Patrick at the old Jail, this woman was feeding us information analogous to causing us to drink from a fire hose. But she gestured for us to follow her and suddenly we appeared at the entrance to a massive warehouse. What I thought at the moment, was that this place was a combination of the Tardis and Warehouse 13.

I'm not gonna give it all away, but I promise you if you like history you will love this place, and if you love history you will not want to leave at all. Rubie is a big reason for that as well.

A quick observation about the complex, including the Old Jail. The training program for these people clearly is on point, but if you don't bring the right individuals on board to tell your stories, nobody cares to listen.

She was delighted to engage and answer our questions patiently. It was the end of the day and yet she was in no hurry to rush us out. I feel like you could play a game called "Stump Rubie", and you would lose. Anything I asked her a question about, anything we asked her question about, she answered from a place of knowledge. I think that knowledge comes from a place of enjoying what she does. Like Patrick at the Jail, Rubie is truly a brand ambassador for this place and space.

This is clearly a tour one can do more than once and still learn something different every single time. If you happen to get somebody like Ruby, I guarantee you will learn something different every single time.

I for one...

Before the construction of this two-story wood frame structure in 1886, this site marked the intersection of the Cubo and Rosario lines, earthen embankments that fortified colonial St. Augustine during the late 18th century. Tolomato Indians established a mission village in the eastern corner of the property in the 18th century. The village was later converted to a Catholic cemetery in the 1770s Henry Flagler’s Model Land Company acquired the property in the late 19th century to be developed as part of an upscale Victorian residential neighborhood. The drugstore is the lone surviving Italianate commercial structure, once common in St. Augustine. The structure housed the Speissegger Drugstore as early as 1887. T.W. Speissegger, a druggist from Charleston, and his two sons, T. Julius and R.A. continued to operate the drug store company and sundries store until the 1960s when the building became a tourist attraction. From 1910 through the first half of the 20th century, generations of Orange Street School children bought penny candy here after school. The building then became home to the Potter’s Wax Museum, America’s...

Cool tour, interesting items. Our tour guide, Ruby, was a bit snarky. After she attempted to explain my own state (Virginia) to me and I corrected her (Arlington is NORTHERN Virginia, NOT eastern Va), I must have injured her sensitivities when I corrected her claim that the US government is a democracy. We are not. The US is a republic....better yet, a representative republic. Just because your tv calls the US a "democracy" doesnt make it so. Please refer to our founding documents, including Federalist Paper 10, both of which clearly explain our style of government. If those are too hard to understand, the US Library of Congress, as well as several other "dot gov" websites, break it down to an average reading level. It is my opinion that "niche-specific" tour guides should stick to their realm...