Steffen Drug Store

For well over a century, pharmaceutical goods were available from a store abutting the College Inn Bar and the building originally constructed for the Maverick Bank; in fact this store was effectively—if not esthetically—a one-story extension of the latter building. The Steffen Drug Store was founded at this location in 1887, in a modest, singlestory wood-frame building. The business changed hands several times across the ensuing decades, and the original structure was eventually replaced by the present, even more unassuming, brick building; but the nature of the business itself remained unchanged until the beginning of the 21st century, making it the secondlongest running business, as a type, in Douglas history. (The top spot belongs to The Douglas Budget newspaper, founded as “Bill Barlow’s Budget” at Fort Fetterman, in 1886.) The Drug Store’s founder, J. J. Steffen, was born in France in 1855 and immigrated to America as a child. He served as a pharmacist’s apprentice, then came to Wyoming in 1886, aiming to capitalize on opportunities afforded by the construction of the new Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad. After establishing a pharmacy at Lusk, Wyoming in 1886, he moved to Douglas and opened a second business on a small parcel of land behind the Maverick Bank. After Steffen’s death in 1914, the business continued to flourish for many decades under the management of his descendants. They opened an underground ice cream parlor called the “Palm Garden” that, bedecked with (presumably artificial) representatives of the tropical plant, was especially popular with younger, socially-aspiring residents of Douglas. During J.J.’s ownership, the store was also renowned for its “Indian Room,” wherein Steffen displayed his extraordinary collection of American Indian artifacts, which he eventually sold, in its entirety, to a Denver museum.