"They said this in 'Young Mr. Lincoln’s'* time – and they say it today."

Close inspection of a bottle produced for sale at the Stuart Broadwell Drug Store in Springfield, Illinois, shows the minor imperfections and bubbles in the handmade blown glass. Whitall, Tatum Co., of Millville, New Jersey, manufactured the bottles with the druggist’s name embossed on the side. Broadwell was in business from 1888 to 1928, but the maker’s mark on the base of this bottle shows it could not have been made before 1901. This particular bottle shape was used for a variety of products, so a paper label identifying the contents was applied to the side of the bottle that was free of embossing.

Broadwell’s main store was located at Fifth and Washington Streets in a building that remains standing today. It claimed a connection to Abraham Lincoln in an advertisement stating it was built on the site of a previous drug store operated by a man who played chess with Lincoln.

Source: “Good For What Ailed You” in Springfield, Illinois: Embossed Pharmaceutical Bottles Used by Springfield Druggists from the Civil War Era to the Early Twentieth Century, by Frederick M. Brown [2015]

*"Young Mr. Lincoln” was a theater production advertised in 1939.