Mary Michalka, who with her husband, John, opened West Milford’s first pharmacy nearly 75 years ago, with Mayor Phil Weisbecker in 2000. She was honored as a Lifetime West Milford Volunteer. (Photo courtesy of Ann Genader)
Action by the City of Newark on Sept. 4, 1889, with a contract with the East Jersey Water Co. to construct reservoirs and aqueducts capable of delivering 50 million gallons of water to customers daily brought major changes in North Jersey.
At least a dozen self-sufficient early communities in the West Milford area were destroyed and replaced by forests that regrew.
The first three reservoirs - Clinton, Macopin and Oak Ridge - were completed by May 1892, and on Sept. 24, 1900, all the reservoirs and pipelines were conveyed to the City of Newark.
To protect the potable water supply, Newark purchased the land where the communities existed with the goal of keeping pollution away from the water bodies.
If people did not want to sell their land, the law of eminent domain prevailed. Landowners, many of them farmers, were given what was deemed a fair price for their property, and it was deeded to the City of Newark Watershed.
Homes, hotels, school, churches, post offices and general stores were destroyed, leaving vacant land with old building foundations often found by hikers today.
Among the towns razed were Echo Lake, Canistear, Charlottesburg, Clinton, Paradise, Stockholm, Postville and Uttertown. At least a dozen or so more of these lost settlements once existed.
Thomas Reilly, a former Newark News reporter, became superintendent of the watershed in 1922. He and his wife, Mae (Baier) Reilly, and their eight children lived in a house at Echo Lake. After his sudden death in 1925, Mae delivered their ninth child. To support her large family, Newark gave Mae a property caretaker job.
Thomas P. Byrnes became the next superintendent. He and his wife, Mary, had five children and lived in a home on watershed property off the current Route 23/Echo Lake Road intersection.
Both the Reilly and Byrnes families were devout Catholics, and they were very active in organizations and activities at St. Joseph Church. Byrnes was very involved in many business and political aspects of the West Milford community, and he was well known to people throughout the sparsely populated township.
The 1920s and ‘30s was a time when lake communities were being built, with people building vacation homes.
Although Newark purchased 35,000 acres of land (most of which is in West Milford) for watershed protection, there was plenty of non-watershed land throughout the township available for purchase. A new era of development of communities began.
Among the earliest summer home colonies were Pinecliff Lake, Gordon Lakes, Lindy’s Lake (named to honor pilot Charles Lindbergh, who made the first non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris), Upper Greenwood Lake (introduced by the New York Daily Mirror newspaper), Awosting, Mountain Spring Lake, Mount Glen Lakes and Shady Lake.
The people moving to the summer homes were used to the conveniences of city living. They would have to drive many miles in search of a pharmacy, and it was something no one wanted to do.
John Michalka was a pharmacist whom Byrnes knew in Newark. Aware that some services were needed in the country areas, Byrnes suggested to Michalka that West Milford might be a good location for him to start a business.
His mother thought this was a terrible idea. “There aren’t any people to support a drugstore,” she told him. The lake homes being built were originally just for summer use and no one would be there to patronize the drugstore the rest of the year. Mrs. Michalka feared that her son and his family would not earn enough revenue to survive, and she feared that the business they planned was doomed to fail.
Dr. Harold Geiger, who had his office in his home on Macopin Road, disagreed with Mrs. Michalka. So did Leslie Freeland, township tax assessor.
The Rev. Pascal Kerwin, Franciscan pastor at St. Catherine’s parish on Lincoln Avenue (later replaced by Our Lady Queen of Peace parish on Union Valley Road) was among those who thought the township needed and could support a pharmacy.
The winter population of 80-plus-square-mile township - from Apshawa/Echo Lake to Oak Ridge/Newfoundland to West Milford Village, Hewitt, Greenwood Lake and Upper Greenwood Lake - in 1950 was 2,000. During that summer, it was 10,000. In 2020, the population had grown to 24,862.
A vacant Great Eastern store building was across from the West Milford Presbyterian Church on Union Valley Road, and Walter Terhune rented it to the Michalkas for $50 a month.
In 2025, it will be 75 years since Michalka started his pharmacy business in West Milford Village in the summer of 1950.
“When John and I were preparing for our opening, a lady knocked on the door and wanted a few things,” Mary recalled in 2000 when we were talking about her adventure. “My thought was, ‘Maybe we will succeed!’
“We worked each day and after a couple or so years, I thought we needed a little time for us, so we closed the store for two weeks. Can you imagine doing that today? I delivered medicine all over - Ringwood, Oak Ridge, Upper Greenwood Lake - driving around in an old U.S. Army jeep!”
The late Eric Arnold, a well-known man throughout the township who served as magistrate and township governing board member, rented the Michalkas an apartment that he owned in the West Milford Village.
After three years, they bought a home on Moore Road in the Birch Hill community, and after six years, they build the West Milford Pharmacy building at 1495 Union Valley Road.
After 26 years in business, working seven days a week, their son Alan decided that his parents needed help, and he and his wife, Tina, bought the business from his parents and started managing it.
The couple, married for 35 years, lived in Warwick, N.Y., starting in 1987. Alan died June 11, 2022, after a long illness at age 74.
He grew up in West Milford from age 3 and graduated from West Milford High School and the University of Minnesota.
John and Mary also had two other sons: Lee, who lives in Naples, Fla., and John “Jack” who is deceased.
Other pharmacies that opened near West Milford Pharmacy much later are Walgreens, across the street on Union Valley Road; ShopRite Pharmacy in the shopping center; and Rite Aid (now closed).
West Milford Pharmacy still does a thriving business. Many of its customers are children of families who depended on John Michalka for their pharmaceutical needs.
Piyush Patel has been managing partner of the business since 2020.