Bruce & Human Drug Company

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Bruce and Human Drug Company in Van Zandt County. Now settle in, because this one's got the makings of a good Texas business story, the kind where one thing leads to another and a whole town ends up better for it. It starts, as so many Texas stories do, with somebody who came from somewhere else and decided to stay.

Oscar Pabst was born in Germany, made his way to Quitman, Texas, and then in 1879 he moved to Wills Point and set himself up along the Dallas-Shreveport road. That was prime real estate for foot traffic, and Oscar knew it. He established an apothecary right there in town, and for a while things hummed along just fine.

Then 1888 rolled around, and a fire damaged Pabst's Store. Now a fire like that could end a man's enterprise, but Oscar Pabst wasn't finished. He relocated the apothecary inside a grocery owned by his son-in-law, a man named B.W.

Bruce. That arrangement did something neither of them might have predicted. Bruce sold the grocery, turned around, and took over the apothecary himself.

He then joined with several investors, one of them being J.H. Human, and in 1898 the Bruce and Human Drug Company was born. The men purchased a building in a prime downtown location, and here's the part worth savoring: it has served the citizens of Wills Point ever since.

Over the years that building has been home to more than just a drugstore. Doctors' offices set up inside. The city's telephone exchange ran its operations there.

A jewelry repair shop found a corner to call its own. And for many years, when election night came around and folks wanted to know how things had gone, they gathered at that building, because that's where the local election returns were posted. One building, one corner of Wills Point, and a whole town's life passing through its doors.

Oscar Pabst lit the match, the fire of 1888 redirected it, and Bruce and Human turned it into something that lasted. That's not a bad run for a German-born apothecary and a road out of Dallas.

What the marker says

German-born Oscar Pabst moved to Wills Point from Quitman, Texas in 1879, and he established an apothecary in town along the Dallas-Shreveport road. After an 1888 fire damaged Pabst's Store, he relocated it inside a grocery owned by his son-in-law, B.W. Bruce. Bruce sold the grocery and took over the apothecary and he joined with several investors, including J.H. Human, to form the bruce and human drug company in 1898. The men purchased a building in a prime downtown location, where it has served Wills Point citizens ever since. Additional tenants have included doctors" offices, the city's telephone exchange and a jewelry repair shop, and local election returns were posted at the building for many years.