Katz Brothers Drug Company
Kansas City, Kansas
1914-
Mike and Isaac “Ike” Katz, founders of the drug store chain, as “The Cut-Rate Kings of Kansas City”, and by 1959, the Katz name and
feline logo adorned stores in St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Des Moines, St. Joseph, Memphis, and Sioux City. That year, a new location in
Overland Park, at 75th and Metcalf, was billed as the largest drug store on Earth, offering two stories of merchandise.
Ike Katz was nine, and his younger brother Mike just a year old, when their family arrived in St. Paul, Minnesota, from Poland. Ike quit
school at the age of 13, beginning the study of merchandising hands-on, as a “news butcher” on the Great Northern Railway. Ike
peddled newspapers on trains traveling throughout the northwest United States. During the late 1890’s, the Klondike Gold Rush
propelled the nation out of an economic depression, and taught Ike Katz the basics of commerce: He found he could sell not only
newspapers, but postcards, blankets, straw mattresses, and souvenirs to men heading north in search of gold.
The company would eventually become known as Skaggs, and then Osco, but the ubiquitous black cat logo of Katz Drugs lives in the
memory of many a Kansas Citizen.
Kansas City, Kansas
1914-
Mike and Isaac “Ike” Katz, founders of the drug store chain, as “The Cut-Rate Kings of Kansas City”, and by 1959, the Katz name and
feline logo adorned stores in St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Des Moines, St. Joseph, Memphis, and Sioux City. That year, a new location in
Overland Park, at 75th and Metcalf, was billed as the largest drug store on Earth, offering two stories of merchandise.
Ike Katz was nine, and his younger brother Mike just a year old, when their family arrived in St. Paul, Minnesota, from Poland. Ike quit
school at the age of 13, beginning the study of merchandising hands-on, as a “news butcher” on the Great Northern Railway. Ike
peddled newspapers on trains traveling throughout the northwest United States. During the late 1890’s, the Klondike Gold Rush
propelled the nation out of an economic depression, and taught Ike Katz the basics of commerce: He found he could sell not only
newspapers, but postcards, blankets, straw mattresses, and souvenirs to men heading north in search of gold.
The company would eventually become known as Skaggs, and then Osco, but the ubiquitous black cat logo of Katz Drugs lives in the
memory of many a Kansas Citizen.
B
| Katz Cutrate Super Store Wellston, Missouri This advertising measuring cup Circa: 1950's has the famous cat image used by Katz Drug stores. Katz Cut Rate Super Drug Store was on the ground floor of the four story Loop Building at 6101 Easton at Hodiamont Avenue in Wellston next to the Wellston Streetcar Terminal. I was born two years after the Loop building was completed. I left the area when the building was about 23 years old. Now in 2007, Easton Avenue has been renamed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Wellston suffered like many urban areas and is just now, recovering from mass post war exodus to suburban living. Population shifted, businesses and industry moved, the town almost became an urban ghost town. Many, far too many good homes and buildings were razed. |
| Came in 2 colors pink {girls} & blue {boys} |