Mabee Drug Store was a well-known business at 37 Water Street from the earliest years of the 20th century into the 1970s when later owners acquired a Rexall franchise. According to an online genealogical source the long-time proprietor, Jacob Pike Mabee, was born in Eastport on November 8, 1872 and died in Lubec on April 28, 1962.

During an earlier era local pharmacies routinely made up their retail medications. For example, Parke, Davis & Co., a major United States drug manufacturer based in Detroit, sold the principal active ingredient in Paregoric, opium (the source of morphine), by the pint in various strengths “designed for preparing the tincture by direct dilution.” Generally available without a prescription before 1970, paregoric was discontinued in the U.S. in 2011.

Mabee bought its Duraglas brand medicine bottles from Owens Illinois Glass Company. The bottle pictured here bears a trademark which the manufacturer began using in 1940.