Buffalo County Historical Society - Making History Fun!

This Day - January 6, 1972

When businesses open, close or change hands in Buffalo County, people take notice! In 1972, the druggist in Alma, Willard Breckow, retired, and sold his drug store to Darrell Gross and Rick Sime of La Crosse. The news hit the front page of the January 6, 1972 issue of the Buffalo County Journal. Following is the article:

W.E. Breckow Sells Drug Store

Mr. and Mrs. Willard Breckow have sold the City Drug Store to Darrell Gross and Rick Sime of La Crosse. The new owners took over on January 1.

In the picture, Mr. Breckow is filling one of his last prescriptions before retiring from the business, but he was back again on Wednesday, filling in for the new owners.

In reminiscing about coming to Alma in 1932, Mr. Breckow said that he looked over the whole state of Wisconsin to find a drug store he would like to own.

In Alma he found the only one overlooking the Mississippi River, so he bought it and stayed here for 40 years and intends to remain in Alma.

Mr. Breckow had become interested in motor boat racing an began tuning engines for speed. This led to repairing outboard motors and finally to selling and repairing Mercury Motors as part of the Breckow Drug and Marine.

He will continue repairing and selling motors on the lower floor of the Drug Store as well as doing a lot more fishing.

This Day - December 23, 1869

The following advertisements were found in the December 23, 1869 issue of The Alma Weekly Express. Today, advertisements in the days before Christmas would be entirely for presents and holiday greetings, but none of the ads in this paper even mentioned Christmas!