Editing Osco Drug and Sav-on Drugs (section)

== History ==
[[File:Osco logo.png|right|thumb|Osco Drug logo]]

===Roots===
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In 1915, [[Skaggs family|S.M. Skaggs]], a Baptist minister, opened a grocery store in [[American Falls, Idaho]], with lower prices on goods.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-03-23-fi-1801-story.html|title=Lucky's Suitor Has Eye for Bargains|date=1988-03-23|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US|access-date=2020-04-23}}</ref> In 1917, O.P Skaggs started a chain of self-service stores, and later sold the franchise in the western states to Christian Call. In 1926, the Skaggs brothers merged the chain with Sam Seelig stores, which had become [[Safeway Inc.|Safeway]] in 1925.<ref name=":0" /> L.J. Skaggs retired from Safeway in 1932, and in 1934, he opened the first self-service drugstore in the US in [[Tacoma, Washington]].

=== First store ===
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Loronzo L. (L.L.) Skaggs owned a controlling stock in a company called Quality Food in Minnesota and subsequently left the Safeway business. L.L. opened a chain of self-service drugstores in the Midwest similar to his brother L.J.'s stores in the west. The first store opened in 1937 in [[Rochester, Minnesota]], and was named "Pay-Less" (different from the drug chain [[Thrifty Payless|Payless]] founded later in the century), and was managed by George Hilden. The store remained in operation until 1987, when it closed due to redevelopment in downtown Rochester.

In 1937, while in the process of opening a second store in [[Mason City, Iowa]], it was learned that another company had already registered the name "Payless" in the state. L.L changed "Payless" to "Self-Service Drug, Inc." and formed a new corporation.

=== Name change to Osco===
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In 1942, the corporation "Self-Service Drug, Inc." was dissolved and succeeded by "'''O'''wners '''S'''ervice '''Co'''mpany", a partnership of L.L Skaggs, H.B. Finch, Paul Stratton and George Hilden. From this company 'Osco' was coined. That year Osco moved its headquarters from [[Waterloo, Iowa]], to the [[Merchandise Mart]] in [[Chicago, Illinois]].