Picture East Windsor - Then And Now

EAST WINDSOR, CT — Today we begin a periodic informal series highlighting businesses from East Windsor's past, and what those locations look like today. Our initial offering goes back more than four decades, to a longtime business which operated in an historic building in Broad Brook.

Pigeon's Pharmacy, shown in an advertisement from the 1979 East Windsor High School yearbook, the Archive, was located at 100 Main Street, in a building constructed in 1850 which housed the original Broad Brook Post Office. Ernest Winfield Pigeon, born in 1880, was a registered pharmacist. He died in 1951 at age 70, and is buried at nearby St. Catherine's Cemetery. His wife, Cora, passed away in 1982 at 95, and was buried alongside him.

A fire in 1986 destroyed a considerable portion of the premises, with only the first floor remaining. In the late 1990s, Alfred's Cafe began a 10-year run at the location.

The site is currently home to the At The Dam restaurant, owned and operated since 2010 by Donna Cunningham until her retirement in Nov. 2019. The eatery is currently owned and operated by Susan Chadbourne and her son, Paul Merker. Here is a contemporary look at the building, taken last Saturday.

Do you have a photo of an old East Windsor business which no longer exists which we could feature in this column? Email tim.jensen@patch.com.

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