Tampa Drug Company was formed around 1890 by Dr. C.C. Harris, who sold the business to a Mr. Bennett in 1894. It was an early drugstore selling elixirs, tonics, and drugs to cure everything from constipation and despondency through Ajax Tablets that can “positively cure all nervous disease caused by abuse or other excesses and indiscretions [even insanity].” In this photo, the wholesale business and warehouse are on the left, the retail store in the middle, and the tall building next door is the 10-story Hotel Olive. The Tampa Tribune started on the second floor of the retail store in 1895. By the 1940s, Allen’s Photo Supply was a department of the Tampa Drug Co., and Henry Cox Jr.- the future owner of Tampa Photo Supply, was the manager. Cox obtained and then sold the Burgert collection to the Hillsborough County Library.

In 1930, the Olive Hotel was renamed Hotel Thomas Jefferson after an extensive remodeling. Tampa Drug Co. moved out of the building in 1956 to a new 55,000 sq. ft. building on north Dale Mabry. In 1961, Tampa developer Jim Walter bought the entire block, including the hotel. The drug building sold for $170,000 and was to be gutted. Walter kept it and leased it into the late 1970s. In 1982, the $10-million Fort Brooke Municipal Garage opened here along with the Tampa City Center project, a 4-block renovation of the area including a Hyatt hotel and the Tampa City Center.

 © Chip Weiner. All rights reserved