Dr. Pierce's Pleasant Pellets, Cottage Grove Oregon
Posted by: 
TheBeanTeam
N 43° 48.328 W 123° 03.289
10T E 495590 N 4850268
Advertising barn on old Highway 99 through Cottage Grove Oregon.
Coordinates given are in a parking lot across Highway 99 from the barn.
Waymark Code: WM370W
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 02/20/2008
Views: 124
Considered to be a vanishing breed of advertising. Advertising barns were considered eyesores in the 1960's but have made a popular comeback as their numbers are depleted.
The ad on this barn dates to 1912 and it is repainted from time to time. The city of Cottage Grove has a history of restoring vintage advertising in their city.
Born in 1840 Dr. Ray Vaughn Pierce founded the World Dispensary in 1867. He made his fortune in the patent medicine business earning over $500,000 per year between 1867 and 1880. Dr. Pierce was the author of a medical reference book for the masses that sold over 2 million copies. He was a state senator in 1877-79 and later a congressman from the State of New York in 1879-80. He died in 1914 at the age of 73.
Additional information about Dr. Pierce
--Nevada State Journal, October 17 1896Tam O'Shanter's ride through the midnight wind with the horrible hobgoblins pursuing him was only a bad dream, or nightmare, which anybody is liable to experience as the result of overeating or an attack of biliousness or indigestion. To avoid such disagreeable experiences one or two of Dr. Pierce's Pleasant Pellets should be taken after a too hearty meal and the action of the stomach will thereby be quickened and the meal promptly digested....
The Pellets cure biliousness, sick and bilious headache, dizziness, costiveness, or constipation, sour stomach, loss of appetite, coated tongue, indigestion, or dyspepsia, windy belchings, "heartburn," pain and distress after eating, and kindred derangements of the liver, stomach and bowels. One little "Pellet" is a laxative, two are mildly cathartic.
Text of Pleasant Pellets advertisment found at
the Vassar College website; 1896 Popular Medicine
New York Times Archive: Pleasant Pellets testimonial from May 31, 1894 (pdf)adobe acrobat required
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