The 1886 Old Drugstore

Before the construction of this two-story wood frame structure in 1886, this site marked the intersection of the Cubo and Rosario lines, earthen embankments that fortified colonial St. Augustine during the late 18th century. Tolomato Indians established a mission village in the eastern corner of the property in the 18th century.

The village was later converted to a Catholic cemetery in the 1770s. Henry Flagler’s Model Land Company acquired the property in the 19th century to be developed as part of an upscale Victorian residential neighborhood. The drugstore is the lone surviving Italianate commercial structure, once common in St. Augustine.

The structure housed the Speissegger Drugstore as early as 1887. T.W. Speissegger, a druggist from Charleston, and his two sons, T. Julius and R.A., continued to operate the drug store company and sundries store until the 1960s when the building became a tourist attraction. From 1910 through the first half of the 20th century, generations of Orange Street School children bought penny candy here after school.

The building then became home to the Potter’s Wax Museum, America’s oldest wax museum.