By Kelsey Koym, Archivist and Special Collections Librarian
Introduction
McGovern Historical Center has a new collection: the IC 109 Houston Drug Company Records. The Houston Drug Company was a business that was emblematic of the early days of pharmaceutical manufacturing in Houston, Texas. The various logs and documents are all from the laboratory of the Houston Drug Company, a corporation formed in Houston, Texas in 1895.
The original stockholders of the Houston Drug Company included some notable names in Houston’s history such as William Marsh Rice (i.e. Rice University) and Captain James A. Baker (i.e. Baker Botts). The Company was originally located at 110 and 112 Travis Street. The building is still standing (as of this writing) and sits between Houston’s Market Square Park and Allen’s Landing, just across the Bayou from the University of Houston’s downtown campus.
Business was good for the Houston Drug Company, even in its first year. The Records comprise ledgers, minutes, and correspondence containing primarily financial information. The Records detail the Houston Drug Company’s history as a wholesaler and manufacturer of necessities found in drug stores and pharmacies in Houston and throughout Texas between 1895-1929.
Dissolution of the Houston Drug Company
On July 25,1929, the Houston Drug Company was acquired for stock by Southwestern Drug Corporation, a larger multilocation drug wholesaler from Dallas. The Southwestern Drug Company grew and changed. By the early 1950’s the dusty upstairs lab in Houston and its secrets were long forgotten and abandoned, and the main office was moved to Dallas.
Provenance
Walter N. Kuntz, Jr. went to work in 1924 as an office boy for his uncle Oscar Lang at the Houston Drug Company, located at the time in downtown Houston. Mr. Oscar Lang was the Secretary-Treasurer of the Houston Drug Company, and his handwritten notes are included in the Records. His nephew, Mr. Kuntz, would have other employment, and finally return in 1946 to the Houston Drug Company, which by then had dissolved and merged with the Southwestern Drug Corporation.
Walter N. Kuntz, Jr. became manager in 1952 of the Houston Division of the Southwestern Drug Corporation. In the late 1950’s there was a remodeling of Southwestern’s building in Houston, located at Preston and Caroline Street(s). The old laboratory was turned into additional warehouse space. The lab equipment was going to be thrown out along with the books and records of the (previously named) Houston Drug Company. Walter N. Kuntz, Jr. saved what he could of the records and the old lab equipment, and he stored them in the family’s garage. In 1959 he became president of the Southwestern Drug Corporation, and the family moved to Dallas, where the company’s general offices were located. Walter N. Kuntz, Jr. would pass on these materials to his son, Nick Kuntz, who would then go on to donate them to McGovern Historical Center in 2026.