Walgreens history

1916: Now operating nine drugstores, the founder incorporates his business as Walgreen Co.

By 1919 there were 20 Walgreen stores, 19 of which were on Chicago's South Side while the other was on the near north side.

To meet the demand for ice cream and to assure its quality, Walgreen established its own ice cream manufacturing plants during the 1920s.

In 1921 the company opened a store in Chicago's downtown, its first outside a residential area.

In 1922, the company introduced a malted milkshake, which led to its establishing ice cream manufacturing plants.

The company continued to add to its number of stores, and by mid-1925, there were 65 stores with total annual sales of $1.2 million.

In 1927 the company was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

By the end of 1929, there were 397 Walgreen stores in 87 cities; annual sales were $47 million with net earnings of $4 million.

The company continued promoting itself, however; in 1931, it had become the first drugstore chain in the United States to advertise on radio.

There were several major events for Walgreen in 1933.

Also in 1934 the company's stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

In April 1940 the Marvin Drug Co., which operated eight stores and a warehouse in Dallas, merged with Walgreen Co.

In 1941 there was a split between Charles Walgreen, Jr., and Justin Dart.

In 1943 the company opened a store in the Pentagon, in Washington, D.C.

In 1946 the company acquired a 27 percent interest, later increased to 44 percent, in a major Mexican retail and restaurant company, Sanborns.

In 1948 the company expanded its corporate headquarters in Chicago.

In 1949 the company canceled plans for a merger with Thrifty Drug Co., a California chain, largely because Thrifty's clerk-service style would hamper a conversion of the entire company to self-service.

Walgreen opened its first self-serve store in 1952, becoming an early leader in this self-service concept.

By the end of 1953, there were 22 self-service Walgreens.

Another major event of 1960 was the opening of the first Walgreens in Puerto Rico.

In 1962 Walgreen Co. entered the discount department store field by paying about $3 million for the assets of United Mercantile Inc., which owned three large Globe Shopping Center stores and seven smaller Danburg department stores, all in the Houston, Texas, area.

Also in 1963, the company elected its first outside directors to the board.

The first Walgreens Super Center opened in 1964 in the Chicago suburb of Norridge.

The company expanded the Globe chain throughout the South and Southwest; by 1966, there were 13 Globe stores generating annual sales of more than $120 million.

A third generation of Walgreens ascended to the company presidency in 1969.

The stores did well at first but were closed by 1973.

Also in 1975, the company completed the first phase of a new drug and cosmetics laboratory in Kalamazoo, Michigan; expanded its distribution center in Berkeley, Illinois; and, in Chicago, replaced its plastic container plant and photo processing studio with new ones.

In 1979 Walgreen Co. acquired 16 Stein drugstores in the Milwaukee area.

Expanding the drugstore business, Walgreen Co. brought the Rennehbohm chain, based in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1980.

In 1981 Walgreen bought 21 Kroger SuperX drugstores in Houston.

The company continued expanding in the drugstore area, while divesting itself of other businesses; also in 1984 it sold its interest in Sanborns, by then 46.9 percent, to Sanborns's other principals for about $30 million, a move spurred by Mexico's high inflation rate.

In 1986, Walgreens acquired the MediMart chain from Stop & Shop.

In 1988, continuing to trim non-drugstore businesses, Walgreen sold its 87 freestanding Wag's restaurants to Marriott Corporation.

Although most of this growth was accomplished organically, the 1990s began with an acquisition, the 1990 purchase of Lee Drug, a nine-unit drugstore chain in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

1992: First freestanding Walgreens store opens; drive-through pharmacies make their debut.

In 1994 the Pharmacy Direct Network was created with the help of some independent drug stores.

Drawing Up Aggressive Strategies to Knock Each Other Out." Dallas Business Journal, 12 July 1996.

In fiscal 1997 the Walgreen Co. had its twenty-third consecutive year of sales and profit increases.

Levenson, Maurice. "Drugstore Industry (Part 3-Ratings & Reports)." The Value Line Investment Survey, 10 April 1998.

In 1999 Walgreen launched a comprehensive online pharmacy that enabled customers to order prescriptions for in-store pickup or mail delivery and also offered access to the health and wellness content of Mayo Clinic Health Information.

According to a company spokesman, Walgreen plans to have 3,000 stores operating by the year 2000.

RXN aimed to create a 500-unit chain by 2002.

By the end of 2003, of the 4,227 company drugstores, 3,363 were freestanding units and 3,280 had drive-through pharmacies; more than half of the stores were less than five years old.

In 2010, Walgreens acquired New York City-area chain Duane Reade for $1.075 billion, including debt, and continued to use the Duane Reade name on some stores in the New York City metropolitan area.

On June 19, 2012: Walgreens paid $6.7 billion for a 45% interest in Alliance Boots.

On July 28, 2016, Walgreens announced it would shut down Drugstore.com, as well as Beauty.com, in order to focus on its own Walgreens.com website.

On September 19, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved Walgreen's fourth attempt to purchase Rite Aid, with 1,932 stores for $4.38 billion total.