E. H. Graul Pharmacy

To date, I've found 7 intact pharmacy bottles while exploring what lies 3'-4' beneath the surface of my yard. I found all 7 in the same general area, just east of where the property's original shed sat. 

Sanborn Map Company, St. Louis, MO, July 1903 -- my property is denoted by the red rectangle

I've found buried debris all over the yard, almost all of it a random assortment of brick, limestone, and busted glass (but there's also been marbles, kitchenware, rusty metal, etc.), so I was surprised to find an intact bottle, let alone 7. Until then, I kind of figured dirt had been added to the yard at some time, maybe to level the north portion (today it sits about 5' above the alley and is held in place by a brick retaining wall), and all the junk just came with it.

But the first pharmacy bottle I pulled out was embossed and, after a little homework, it turns out that the bottle came from a pharmacy right down the street. That's too close to home; I'm now convinced that the buried items once belonged to long ago owners of my house.  

E. (Ernst/Ernest) H. Graul was a St. Louis pharmacist in the early part of the 20th century, having graduated from the St. Louis College of Pharamacy. His first professional venture was as a clerk in his brother William's pharmacy at 2901 Cherokee and in 1907, along with a brother-in-law, Ernst and William opened the Graul-Rudi Pharmacy at 3156 Shenandoah.   

Sanborn Map Company, St. Louis, MO, July 1903

In going from 2901 Cherokee to the southeast corner of Compton and Shenandoah, which is a little over a mile to the north, it's possible that Ernst and co. wanted to capitalize on the deep pockets that had been attracted to the recently developed Compton Heights neighborhood.

MO Historical Society, Plan of Compton Heights, 1893

MO Historical Society, Plan of Compton Heights, 1893

Ernst remained a partner in the Graul-Rudi Pharmacy until 1912, when he opened his own pharmacy at 2266 S. Compton (The Lipp Building), or the northeast corner of Compton and Shenandoah. At the time, the 2-story building that housed 2266 was new construction; it didn't exist as of the 1903 Sanborn Map. An updated version of the 1903 map is shown below. 

Sanborn Map Company, St. Louis, MO, July 1903 - 1951

Ernst operated out of this storefront until about 1919. As this is the only period of time I can identify E. H. Graul as a sole proprietor of a pharmacy, I'm confident that the the bottle I found in the yard was purchased from that pharmacy sometime between 1912 and 1919. 

After that, Graul moved to Florida and gave up the pharmacy trade in favor of growing fruit. He would remain a resident of Florida for the remainder of his life, dying there in 1959 at the age of 76.   

The Miami Herald, Sunday, May 10, 1959, Page 9

I found a lot of information on E. H. Graul, but much of it was the same few mentions over and over and over. 100+ years ago, corner drug stores were common and there wasn't anything particularly noteworthy about most of them, or their owners. The lack of mentions in the local papers of the day tells me that Ernst H. Graul lived a quiet, pedestrian life. 

I've walked past 2266 S. Compton hundreds of times with the dogs. The Lipp Building is fully occupied but without much commercial pedestrian activity.

2266-68 S. Compton, 2025

Bottle from 2266 S. Compton

100+ years ago, however, the Lipp Building was home to a number of businesses - a barber, a tailor, and a milliner - that undoubtedly served, regularly, a fair number of nearby residents. It also had a 5-lane bowling alley in the basement, which explains the building's unusual street level basement access on Shenandoah.   

St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Sunday, October 30, 1910, Page 46

And, it had E. H. Graul's drug store. I'm glad I found a little chunk of its history buried in my yard.   ​