Generations of customers and employees hold fond memories of trips to the Walgreens soda fountain and prescriptions filled by the friendly local pharmacist. Most of all, they remember Walgreens, a welcome, dependable presence in countless neighborhoods across the country for more than 100 years.

Many of the products that have enriched our lives over the decades were developed and manufactured by Walgreens. Until the 1980s, however, there was no formal process for collecting and documenting the company's history. All that changed with the Walgreen Drug Stores Historical Foundation.