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Osco Drug and Sav-on Drugs were the names of a pair of chain pharmacies that operated in the United States. Osco Drug was founded by the Skaggs family. Alpha Beta grocery store was purchased by American Stores in 1961. Skaggs Drug Centers bought American Stores in 1979 and assumed the American Stores name. Sav-on Drugs was a California-based pharmacy chain that was acquired by Osco's parent company in 1980. Both Osco and Sav-on stores eventually came under the ownership of American Stores, then Albertsons, and finally SuperValu before the stores were sold off. The Osco and Sav-on brands survive today as brandings for in-store pharmacies in the Albertsons chain of stores. Osco pharmacies can be found in Jewel stores, which are co-branded Jewel-Osco, as well as in Shaw's and Star Markets. Sav-on pharmacies are found largely in Acme stores. Pharmacies in Albertsons stores are called Osco in Arizona and Montana stores, and Sav-On in other markets, in Nevada and predominantly in Texas for example. History Roots In 1915, S.M. Skaggs, a Baptist minister, opened a grocery store in American Falls, Idaho, with lower prices on goods. In 1917, O.P Skaggs started a chain of self-service stores, and later sold the franchise in the western states to Christian Call. In 1926, the Skaggs brothers merged the chain with Sam Seelig stores, which had become Safeway in 1925. L.J. Skaggs retired from Safeway in 1932, and in 1934, he opened the first self-service drugstore in the US in Tacoma, Washington. First store Loronzo L. (L.L.) Skaggs owned a controlling stock in a company called Quality Food in Minnesota and subsequently left the Safeway business. L.L. opened a chain of self-service drugstores in the Midwest similar to his brother L.J.'s stores in the west. The first store opened in 1937 in Rochester, Minnesota, and was named "Pay-Less" (different from the drug chain Payless founded later in the century), and was managed by George Hilden. The store remained in operation until 1987, when it closed due to redevelopment in downtown Rochester. In 1937, while in the process of opening a second store in Mason City, Iowa, it was learned that another company had already registered the name "Payless" in the state. L.L changed "Payless" to "Self-Service Drug, Inc." and formed a new corporation. Name change to Osco In 1942, the corporation "Self-Service Drug, Inc." was dissolved and succeeded by "Owners Service Company", a partnership of L.L Skaggs, H.B. Finch, Paul Stratton and George Hilden. From this company 'Osco' was coined. That year Osco moved its headquarters from Waterloo, Iowa, to the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, Illinois. Acquisitions The Jewel Companies, Inc. In 1961, The Jewel Companies, Inc. acquired the 31 Osco Drug stores in six Midwest states. In 1962, Osco's headquarters was moved from Chicago's Merchandise Mart to Melrose Park, Illinois, and the first side-by-side "Jewel-Osco" store opened. The early Jewel-Osco combination (combo) stores were two individual stores, separated by an interior wall (and in some locations, a half-wall), allowing a customer to go back and forth between each store without having to go outside. After the merger, all of Jewel's subsidiaries soon had an Osco Drug. Some Eisner Food Stores locations were re-branded "Eisner-Osco". When Jewel acquired Star Market in 1964, the first Osco Drug in New England was opened, and some were next to Star Market locations and were branded as "Star-Osco". By 1968, Osco grew to 168 stores in sixteen states. During most of the 1960s, Osco operated as two divisions – 'City Osco', comprising the Chicago, Illinois, and Chicago suburb stores and 'Country Osco' (all the other Oscos). These two divisions were combined in 1968 and formed Osco Drug, Inc. Also in 1968, Osco's headquarters relocated from Melrose Park, Illinois to Franklin Park, Illinois. Later that year, the Jewel Imports procurement group was established to import a broad range of general merchandise from around the world to sell in Osco stores. When The Jewel Companies Inc. acquired Buttrey Food Stores in 1966, many of the stores were converted to a combination store format and bannered as "Buttrey-Osco" with common checkout stands but separate store management, all under one roof. By the early 1980s, Buttrey eventually operated 60 stores in Montana, North and South Dakota, western Minnesota, Wyoming, eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, Utah, and Idaho. Stores were spread thinly over a 2,000-mile (3,200 km) wide territory. Outside of the Chicago metropolitan area, Osco operated stand-alone pharmacies (or free standing stores). In the early years, many of the Jewel and Osco combination stores maintained different operating hours from one another and on certain days such as holidays, one side of the combo store would be open, while the other would be closed. By the early 1980s, new and remodeled combo stores had the 'wall' removed and the store became one, and to this day, Osco retains control over drug, general merchandise, pharmacy and liquor departments in the Jewel Osco combo stores. In the late 1960s, Osco was seeking to purchase or build a photofinishing plant to service its stores. At the time, the company was using outside vendors, and the film developing quality and service was inconsistent. In 1970, working with Kodak, Osco built a photofinishing lab in Elgin, Illinois. The facility, Crest Photo Lab opened in 1971, and serviced Osco's Chicago, Central and Eastern region stores. The Elgin photo lab expanded several times over the years. As both Osco and its photofinishing market share grew, three more photo plants were added: Alves Photo Service Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1980, Rich Photo Lab Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1984 and Drewry Photocolor Burbank, California, in 1987 (renamed Crest Photo in 1988). The photo labs were sold to Kodak's Qualex photo processing division in 1996, prompted by the emergence of in-store one-hour photo labs and digital photography technology. In 1974, Osco's headquarters were relocated from Franklin Park, Illinois, to a new facility at 1818 Swift Drive in Oak Brook, Illinois. Acquisition of Sav-on Drugs In November 1980, The Jewel Companies Inc. purchased Sav-on Drugs, Inc. which was headquartered in Anaheim, California, and had 150 stores in California, Nevada and Texas. The Sav-on chain became Osco's 'Western Region'. American Stores Company In 1984, American Stores Company, which consisted of Alpha Beta, Acme Markets, and Skaggs, acquired The Jewel Companies Inc. American Drug Stores, Inc. In 1989, a new subsidiary, American Drug Stores, Inc., was formed and consisted of American Stores drugstore holdings of Osco Drug, Sav-on Drugs, the Osco side of the Jewel-Osco food-drug combination stores and RxAmerica. RxAmerica began earlier in 1989 as a mail service prescription fulfillment center with a facility in Salt Lake City, Utah. Sav-on re-branding and relaunching American Stores had a strategy to build .... Discover the Sav R Miller popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Sav R Miller books.