The former Bee Dee Stock Medicine headquarters is a landmark of downtown St. Elmo.
photo by Harmon Jolley
Farmers always kept Bee Dee on the shelf at the barn.
photo by Harmon Jolley
Bee Dee products were shipped from St. Elmo to farms around the country.
"You should get some Bee Dee," said Henny Penny to Arnold.
“What hasn’t that building been?” would be a fitting question for the gray building bounded by West Thirty-Eighth Street, Tennessee Avenue, and St. Elmo Avenue. When I was growing up, this was the St. Elmo Post Office where “Red,” our mail carrier prepared to walk his route by loading his leather satchel with “Highlights” (I always cheered for Goofus), “My Weekly Reader,” “TV Guide,” and other periodicals that I enjoyed reading. Each day, a couple of my father’s friends, John Shelley and William “Buck” Price, loaded their vehicles at the post office with mail destined for rural north Georgia.
Starting in the early 1900’s, the building was the home of the Bee Dee Stock Medicine Company. Bee Dee was a subsidiary of the Chattanooga Medicine Company, which began in a two-story building on Market Street in 1879. A number of Chattanooga’s post-Civil War entrepreneurs – Z. Cartter Patten, Fred F. Wiehl, H. Clay Evans, Lew Owen and Theodore G. Montague – had organized the company known today as Chattem.
Mr. Wiehl was the drug manufacturer’s first president, followed by Adolph Ochs. The third president, Colonel A.M. Johnson, moved Chattanooga Medicine to the St. Elmo community that he was developing in the late 1800’s. Black-Draught, a senna-based laxative, was Chattanooga Medicine’s first product. Many Chattanoogans remember watching Porter Waggoner advertising Cardui, Soltice, and other brands of Chattanooga Medicine on his Saturday television show.
Well, they say that other mammals suffer the same maladies as we humans. So, in the early 1900’s, the Bee Dee Stock Medicine Company began manufacturing a variety of medications for farm animals. Bee Dee didn’t have to go far for customers, for just across the river from St. Elmo, Moccasin Bend was being farmed. In that pre-supermarket era, the same could be said of most of Hamilton County.
Bee Dee’s top product was “The Old Reliable Black-Draught for Stock and Poultry.” I suppose that Bee Dee got its name from the “B” and the “D” of “Black-Draught.” There was also Bee Dee Liniment, Bee Dee Healing Powder, Bee Dee Dip, and Bee Dee Colic Remedy. Instructions on the labels of medicine for people warn us today to seek a doctor if condition persists. It was the same with Bee Dee – “Not to be used in any condition which requires the service of a veterinary.”
Taking a page from the business plans of Chattanooga Medicine Company, Bee Dee advertised extensively. The advice to farmers was “Get Some Bee Dee.” Signs for Bee Dee went up in rural areas. The livestock healthcare company also published the “Bee Dee Stock and Poultry Almanac,” which had a daily calendar and information on diseases that one’s farm animals might have.
James R. Huff was the manager of Bee Dee for many years. Mr. Huff moved to Chattanooga in 1902 from his native Red Clay community in Whitfield County. He had been a salesman for the Chattanooga Medicine Company. In addition to managing Bee Dee, J.R. Huff was also a banker in St. Elmo. He and his wife, Annie Willis Huff, were active in civic work in both Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain, and were supporters of the University of Chattanooga.
As a salesman, J.R. Huff became well-known as a motivational speaker. He wrote articles for an internal company publication, ”Tips for Salesmen.” His writings contained advice which was largely based on his memories of growing up in a rural farming area. They were published in 1924 as “Musings of an Old Sorrel Top.” “Sorrel” is from an Old German word meaning “red-brown,” and probably referred to Mr. Huff’s hair color.
One of the articles by J.R. Huff was titled “New Year’s,” and contains some advice still relevant today for those making resolutions for the coming year:
1. “Promise any dad-gummed thing in the world that that will get you out of a tight place, always remembering that tomorrow is another day and sometimes and often another week.”
2. “Be as grouchy and as swelled up as possible. This passes for wisdom, and some people are so foolish they’ll not notice the difference.”
3. “Resolve to take yourself seriously. This pays because other folks will then think you a might man of He-importance in your neighborhood, and you can borrow more money.”
4. “Last. Keep at work. The gates of happiness, of contentment, of real pleasure, open only to hustling feet.”
Bee Dee appears to have gone out of business in the early 1950’s after the passing of J.R. Huff. The building which was Bee Dee’s headquarters has been shared by an extensive list of other businesses over its many years of standing as a landmark of St. Elmo.
During World War II, the Chattanooga Medicine Company manufactured C-rations (combat rations), and used a portion of the building as a warehouse. In more recent years, the Horsing Around carousel animal carving operation was located at the site, followed by an indoor rock-climbing business. The building remains an important artifact of the history of one of Chattanooga’s oldest manufacturers, and of the history of the St. Elmo community.
If you have memories of Bee Dee, or any of the other businesses and organizations which have been housed in this building, please send me an e-mail at jolleyh@bellsouth.net.