A few storefronts further west. 1535 Haight was the Psychedelic Shop, opened by brothers Ron and Jay Thelin in January 1966. It is generally considered the first hippie shop in the United States.
The Thelins were Christian Scientists and former students at San Francisco State. They stocked the shop with what they thought a new psychedelic community would need: books on Eastern philosophy and altered consciousness, posters by the local artists Mouse and Kelley and Rick Griffin, records, incense, bamboo flutes, beads. There was a meditation room in the back. There was a community bulletin board. By the end of 1966 the Psychedelic Shop was functioning as the neighborhood’s unofficial information center, the place new arrivals went to figure out where to crash, find a job, score, or get help.
The Thelins were also organizers. They were among the people who put on the Trips Festival, the Acid Tests, and the Human Be-In. They published the San Francisco Oracle newspaper out of the same space. When the Summer of Love turned into a national news story and the neighborhood was overwhelmed with new arrivals, they were among the organizers of the October 6, 1967 “Death of Hippie” funeral procession, which marched a coffin down Haight Street to send a message that the moment was over. They closed the Psychedelic Shop a few days later. The sign in the window said GONE.