Early Site of Dr. Logue's Drugstore

The plaque gives Dr. John H. Bowers one line as Santa Anna's physician; his papers tell more. Born in Alsace in 1817, he studied at Mühlhausen until 1835, then saw English army doctors treat cholera in India, which turned him to medicine. He reached Texas in 1836 too late for San Jacinto, tended wounded soldiers and befriended Sam Houston and the captive Santa Anna. At Ashbel Smith's urging he earned a degree at the University of Louisiana. He practiced in Galveston, Houston and Brownsville, served in the Mexican War and died at home in Columbus in 1907.

What the plaque says

Early Site of Dr. Logue's Drugstore Known as first drugstore in Republic of Texas. Founded 1844 by Dr. John G. Logue (1815-1861), who came here after graduation (1842) from Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. A partner of his for a time was Dr. John H. Bowers, physician (1836) to captive dictator Santa Anna. Store has had a succession of owners. One, Dr. R.H. Harrison, founded city's railway hospital. Later owners Weller & Burford served trade area extending to Gonzales and Bastrop. O.A. Zumwalt (1870-1951) was proprietor for 48 years. The store, operated on various sites, is now on Bowie Street. (1973)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stafford Opera House — steps away
  A cattleman's bank and theater of 1886 on the Columbus square, in a river town Sam Houston burned in 1836 and a county marked by a long feud and a 1935 lynching.
• Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge — 16 mi
  Ten thousand acres of native coastal prairie northeast of Eagle Lake, kept for a critically endangered grouse, many of whose birds are hatched in captivity and released here.
• Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church (Dubina) — 18 mi
  The church of Texas's first Czech settlement, under a sky-blue painted ceiling that was whitewashed in the 1950s and brought back from faint traces by its own parishioners.
• St. John the Baptist Catholic Church (Ammannsville) — 20 mi
  A wooden Carpenter Gothic church built in 1919 after storm and fire took two before it, its dusty-rose interior painted by an artist whose name was lost for decades.

More markers nearby

• Stage Lines Through Columbus — steps away
• Tumlinson Family — steps away
• Columbus Oak — steps away
• 1890 Cornerstone Ceremony — steps away