Along with Marion Greene, Emma Fetters, and Mary Fazio, Pine Wagner was one of the important 20^th century entrepreneurs in The Springs who happened to be women. Although the California Board of Pharmacy does not keep old records (shamefully!) Pine Wagner must have been one of the first women to be licensed as a pharmacist in the state.

She graduated from the University of Creighton school of pharmacy, in Omaha, Nebraska in 1917, eventually making her way to Bakersfield, then Sonoma Valley around 1944.

She established Valley Drug in 1946, originally in a building on the highway owned by L.E. “Bud” Castner. Castner, once a chicken farmer, had opted to join the less fragrant and more profitable insurance business of a Mr. Mouyer, in the 1940s. After acquiring the building from Mouyer, according to an article in the Index Tribune in 1977, “Some of the space in the building Castner leased out. In this way he brought the first doctor, the first dentist and the first drugstore to Boyes Springs. They were Dr. Michael Mikita, the medico, Dr. Holly Christensen and Miss Pine Wagner.” Judge William Downey also held court in the building.

In 1951, Wagner moved her pharmacy to the new Plaza Center building, which had just been enlarged. It was built on the site of the old Boyes Springs Plaza and railroad depot. It now houses the Boyes Hot Springs post office. (Below)

Wagner owned a duplex on 4^th Avenue in Boyes Springs. We know this because the Index Tribune published notices of building permits and noted hers, for $1200 worth of termite repairs, in 1966.

She sold the business in 1962. Valley Drug stayed in business into the 1980s.

She died in 1975 at the age of 80. She had been a pharmacist for 58 years.

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Index Tribune and photographs courtesy of the Sonoma Valley Historical Society.

Thanks also to the Sonoma County Library and to the California Board of Pharmacy (not)