Ellis & Ernest Drugstore, located at the corner of Phillip Fulmer Way (formerly Stadium Drive) and Cumberland Avenue, was the student gathering place and informal student center from 1926 until purchased by the university in 1965. Terms of the purchase provided for the purchase price to be paid within 22 months and for the drugstore to continue operations for 24 months. It was turned over to UT and razed in 1967. Its purchase came as a compromise after the board of trustees authorized a condemnation suit because of widely divergent appraisals of the property. (UT’s appraisal was $175,000, and the drugstore’s appraisal was $285,000.)
In 1939 the popular drugstore had a national showing when a photographer from Life visited the campus and the football team. He took pictures of players in Ellis & Ernest, and the pictures appeared in Life.
Dr. Harold Ernest, a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, moved to Knoxville in 1917 and joined with Wilbur Ellis to establish the first Ellis & Ernest on North Broadway. This venture led to a partnership of 41 years. The business prospered, and others were soon started on Western Avenue and at Church and Main Streets. The UT drugstore was the fourth in the chain, opening for business on June 1, 1926. The stores on Broadway and at Church and Main were closed, and the drugstore on Western Avenue was presided over by Ellis, with Ernest operating the one on Cumberland.
In the early years of the UT Ellis & Ernest Drugstore, the store was divided into two stores—the drugstore where the soda fountain was later located, and a grocery where the pharmaceutical area later was—with entrances on both Fifteenth Street (Philip Fulmer Way) and Cumberland Avenue. After World War II, the stores were combined and enlarged. A side window of the drugstore was available to students for displaying notices of coming campus events, homecoming events, and the like. The drugstore was one of the few places in town where a student could readily cash a check.
On May 10, 1967, the Tennessee Legislature adopted a joint resolution congratulating and commending Dr. Ernest for his many years of service to UT students. The two owners established a library endowment in 1961 and added to it annually.