| Notes |
- History of Chicago, Volume II From 1857 until the Fire of 187
By A.T. Andreas
(1885)
Medical Supplies
Charles Truax & Co. - This firm is the successor of the firm of G.
Truax & Son, which was established in 1878, at Maguoketa, Iowa. The idea as at
first conceived, and which has since been so successfully carried out, was to
start a physicians' supply store, to furnish practicing physicians everything
needed in their profession at wholesale prices, whether in the line of the
purest and most carefully compounded drugs, or anything in the way of surgical
instruments, electric apparatus, etc. After a stay of two years in Maquoketa,
the business had increased to such proportions that it was thought advisable
to remove to a larger and more central point, and accordingly a change was made
to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. At that time Charles Truax succeeded to the business,
conducting it alone for two years. He then associated with him, as a partner,
C.W. Bassett, who is still connected with the firm, the name and sty
which has since been Charles Truax & Co. In 1884, it was again found necessary
to remove, and this time the change was made to Chicago, and No. 81 Randolph
Street, from which they are better able to meet the demands of a trade which,
in five years, has increased nearly twenty-fold. This statement is verified by
Mr. Truax, who says, that he and one clerk, during his first year in business,
easily attended to all the transactions of the house, while the firm now
employs twenty-two persons, and has five salesmen on the road. Thus it will
be seen that, though new-comers here, they have brought to Chicago an
establishment of great commercial importance.
Charles Truax was born at Milton, Wis. in 1852. His father, Galloway
Truax, came to Illinois in 1957, and settled in Genoa, DeKalb Co., and, in
1967 removed to Maquoketa, Iowa. Here his son Charles, at the age of sixteen,
entered the retail drug store of his father as a clerk, continuing in that
position up to 1873, when, on account of ill-health, he went to Colorad
spending there two years in the study of geology, having collected what is now
one of the finest private collections of minerals and fossils in this country.
In 1875, returning to Maquoketa, Iowa, he became associated as a partne
under the firm name of G. Truax & Son, and, in 1878, established the present
business. Mr. Truax was married to Mary C. Wolff, daughter of P.A. Wolff, of
Maquoketa, Iowa. They have two children, Edith and Ruth.
C.W. Bassett was born at Three Rivers, Mich., in 1844. At the breaking
out of the Rebellion, he entered the Army as hospital steward of the 25
Michigan Volunteer Infantry, and served as such until the close of the War. He
then became employed as a clerk in a general merchandise store in Mattawan,
Mich., and two years afterward engaged in that business on his own account,
which he continued up to 1877. He then went to Saguache, Colo., and
established a general merchandise business, under the firm name of Peyton &
Bassett, which continued up to 1879, when Mr. Bassett sold out his interest,
and went to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as cashier of the Star Wagon Company, a
position he held up to 1882, when he became a member of the firm of Charles
Truax & CO. He married Mary A. Ayres, daughter of J.S. Ayres, M.D., of
Kalamazoo, Mich.
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Bassett Family Association Database
1844 - Deceased
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