STRICTLY BUSINESS: WALGREENS CO. OPENS IN CAPE

"No more, no less is the Walgreens Co., currently at the top of the retail drug business. It will make well over $60 million in sales this year by selling coffee pots, radios, vanishing creams, ink, toilet paper, rubber gloves, golf balls, lunch, or any one of 12,992 other items -- including some drugs."

The above paragraph appeared in a 1935 issue of Fortune magazine, in an article entitled "500 Corner Drugstores."

The more things change the more they remain the same.

Let's take a look at the update version of that opening paragraph of Fortune nearly six decades later.

Walgreens Co., a company with 1,982 stores in 30 states and Puerto Rico, reached $9.2 billion in sales during fiscal 1994, making it the nation's largest drugstore chain and 16th largest retailer.

The typical Walgreens store is 13,500 square feet, which includes 9,700 square feet of sales area and carries more than 16,000 consumable items and necessities. Each store employs 25 to 30 people and averages $4.5 million in annual sales. Nationwide, Walgreens drugstores serve nearly 2 million customers daily.

The latest Walgreens opened last week in Cape Girardeau, in a new 13,000-square-foot building at Independence and Kingshighway.

Walgreens was founded in 1901 by Charles Walgreen when he purchased a Chicago drugstore where he had been working as a pharmacist. It didn't take long for his energy and enthusiasm led to new ideas and ambitious expansion.

This was a new Charles Walgreen, from the young Charles Walgreen who was described as a "young man and restless," at 20 years of age when he left his native Dixon, Ill., heading for the big-city life of Chicago.

Walgreen, born in 1873, worked at a small drugstore in Dixon after graduating from a Dixon business school. When he went to Chicago in 1893, he stepped off the train at the depot, went across the street and asked for a job at the nearest drugstore. He got it.

When the Spanish-American War ignited in 1898, Charles Walgreen, then 25, joined the hospital corps of the First Illinois Volunteers and went to Cuba.

A year later, he was back in Chicago, working at I. W. Blood's Drugstore on the South Side.

Blood wanted to retire, and offered to sell the business to Walgreen for $6,500. By this time, Walgreen was 29, and a registered pharmacist. He had no money of his own, but borrowed $2,000 from his father as a down payment on the store. That same year, he married a girl -- Myrtle Norton -- from Normal, Ill.

When Walgreen was 36, a William G. Valentine offered to sell him a competing drug business nearby for $15,000. He bought it. In 1910, his sales in the two stores totaled $175,000.

Over the next seven years, C. R. Walgreen & Co., Inc., acquired seven new stores and the rest was history.

One of the highlights of Walgreens past was the soda fountain, which was always placed against an outside wall with show windows behind for light and accessibility. Although ice cream sodas and sundaes were the feature items, the lunch counter provided chicken and ham salad, ham sandwiches and much more.

Walgreens invented the milkshake during the early 1920s. Customers stood three and four deep around the soda fountain to buy the "double-rich chocolate malted milk," which was thickened with homemade ice cream and flavored by bittersweet chocolate.

In 1933, Walgreens helped celebrate Chicago's spectacular Century of Progress by opening four stores on the fairgrounds. These stores experimented with advanced fixture design, new lighting techniques and colors -- ideas that helped modernized drugstore layout and design.

During the 1960s, Walgreens filled its 100 millionth prescription, and in 1968, Walgreens became the first major drug chain to put its prescriptions into child-resistant containers, long before it was required by law.

Over the past five years, more than 1,200 Walgreens stores were opened, or remodeled.

The company opened 196 new stores during fiscal 1994, which ended Aug. 31, and plans to open 200 stores in fiscal 1995.

"Intercom," Walgreens pharmacy computer is on-line in all pharmacies.

Today's modern Walgreens drugstores are a far cry from the small drugstore in Dixon, where Charles Rudolph Walgreen used to sit on a high stool rolling pills or running errands for the druggist.

Ruby Tuesday coming to Cape

Ruby Tuesday is coming to Cape Girardeau.

Ruby Tuesday Restaurant, headquartered in Mobile, Ala., is a subsidiary of Morrison's Cafeteria.

"We're looking at a late March opening at Cape Girardeau," said Doug Chajowski, of Ruby Tuesday real estate development in the Midwest region, which includes Missouri.

The new restaurant, which will seat about 200, will be situated near Mount Auburn Road and Route K, in Auburn Park Place, a new commercial retail complex that was announced a week ago.

The Ruby Tuesday group includes more than 200 restaurants, including Kentucky Oak Mall at Paducah, Ky., and Illinois Center Mall at Marion, Ill.

Other Ruby Tuesday operations in Missouri include two restaurants in the St. Louis area and one at Branson.

The Sweet Stop has a new owner and a new name.

Brad and Pam Eggimann of Jackson recently purchased the bakery at 2000 William St. in Cape Girardeau.

"We have renamed it the Sweet Shop," Eggimann said.

The bakery is open from 5 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 5 to noon Saturdays.

The business provides all types of bakery items -- rolls, doughnuts, wedding cakes, regular cakes, pies, cookies and breads.

"With the holidays, we'll have a good variety of Christmas cookies," Eggimann said.

The Eggimanns purchased the business from Craig Horky, who had owned the bakery since 1986.

The bakery was at 1001 Independence until 1989, when it moved to its William Street site.

Wes Kinsey also operates a business, Wedding Cakes by Wes, at the bakery. He also bakes various items for the bakery.

Kirby Company of SEMO has moved to 2119 William, more than doubling its space.

"We went from 2,400 square feet to just over 5,000 square feet," said Tim Costello, owner of the company.

The business was previously at 2008 William.

Boat notes:

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Gaming Commission intends to grant preliminary approval for riverboat casinos in Gary when the commission meets Friday.

The commission conducted hearings in Gary three months ago but had been prevented from approving licenses because the riverboat gaming law was under legal challenge.

That obstacle was lifted Nov. 21 when the state Supreme Court ruled the law constitutional.

Riverboat gambling was legalized by the General Assembly in 1993.

The companies that have applied for licenses in Gary are: Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts of New York; Barden PRC-Gary, organized by President Riverboat Casinos of St. Louis; Dunes Marina Resort & Casino Inc. of Reno, Nev.; and Lakeside Resorts of Gary.