Walgreen Co., widely known as Walgreens, provides all fifty American states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia with different consumer goods plus health, pharmacy and wellness services through its famous divisions: Walgreens Health and Wellness and Walgreens Health Services.

The corporate headquarters of Walgreen Co. are located near Deerfield, Illinois. The company employs more than 5,200 workers at the headquarters.

History of Walgreens

The story of the company started in 1901. The first drugstore was founded in Chicago by Charles R. Walgreen, who became a registered pharmacist in 1897. He bought the pharmacy in which he had been working for some time. Its owner did not want to sell it and raised the price, buy it did not stop Walgreen who wanted to be his own master.

That drugstore was just about 20 feet by 50 feet, and it was a real challenge for Walgreen to turn the badly merchandised and uninviting store into the pharmacy which others can be measured by. He improved the selection of goods, always used pharmaceutical compounds of the highest quality, created a welcoming attitude, installed brighter lights, greeted every customer personally, paid close attention to their needs, and set reasonable prices. Soon every person in Chicago and surroundings knew Walgreen’s location.

In 1910, Walgreen had two drugstores and was constantly looking for new ways of outbidding competitors and satisfying customers. At that time all pharmacies had soda fountains, as soda water was considered to be good for health. Walgreen’s stores had them too. Later he decided to sell home cooked hot food in soda fountain facilities. The idea turned out to be very effective and it increased the customers’ loyalty to the drugstores.

In 1919, Charles Walgreen owned the chain consisting of twenty stores, and their number was growing rapidly. By 1929, he had more than five hundred pharmacies. Walgreen locations appeared in Florida, New York City and many other large markets. Customers appreciated the numerous merits of these drugstores: fair pricing, high quality, great customer service, comfortable design, etc.

Famous malted milkshake, which Walgreen began to sell in 1922, became one of the most successful innovations for his business. This invention caused a big stir. All newspapers in every town where there were Walgreen’s stores wrote about it, and there was no citizen in them who never tried it. Of course, malted milk contributed to Walgreens striking growth.

By 1930, Charles Walgreen’s drugstore chain was considered the most prominent one in the USA. Its annual sales exceeded four million dollars. The company was able to avoid big problems during the notorious stock market crash and the Great Depression.

Walgreen was one of the first American businessmen who realized the importance of advertising. In 1931, Walgreens run the promotion campaign, which cost about ,000 and it was successful. A bit later Walgreens began to advertise itself over the radio. The legendary Bob Elson was the “voice” of the company.

When Charles R. Walgreen died in 1939, his son, named Charles Walgreen Jr., headed Walgreens and continued his father’s work. He retired in 1950s, and Charles R Walgreen III became the president of Walgreen Co. Since 2009, Gregory Wasson is the CEO of the company.

The 1,000th Walgreens drugstore was launched in 1984.

Walgreens Today

Nowadays the company opens more than four hundred new Walgreen locations each year. All the stores are linked into a network with innovative computer system, Intercom Plus, used for filling a huge number of prescriptions every day. Walgreen is the second largest satellite user in the United States (the U.S. government is the first one). The system allows serving customers very quickly and comfortably.

Operating more than 8,300 drugstores, Walgreens is the largest U.S. drug retailing company. The detailed information about all the goods and services of Walgreens can be found on the official website of the company. It can also be used for ordering products online.

If you need to find the nearest Walgreens location you can easily do it using the convenient online locator.