Carole Mullen
Catalog Number: 2011.005.01
Though certainly not recommended for modern-day sanitizing, Bugicide was a popular insecticide manufactured in La Crosse in the 1890s.
This advertising card promotes Mueller’s Bugicide Powder in glowing terms. “When Every Other Remedy Fails, Try Mueller’s Bugicide Powder, Guaranteed to Exterminate Cockroaches and Bedbugs, Also Other Insects such as Flees, Lice (on animals), Plant Lice, Ants, etc. etc., Manufactured by The Bugicide Man’f’g Company, La Crosse, Wis.”
The card features a line drawing of Stephen Mueller and is signed by John Ulrich Jr., sales agent for Bugicide.
The back of the advertising card includes testimonials from La Crosse’s Jung Hotel at Second and Vine streets and Cameron House at Front and Main, as well as the Hotel Winona.
As Fox and Smith, the proprietors of Cameron House noted on Jan. 25, 1892, “We gladly testify herewith that Mr. Mueller undertook to clean our hotel of cockroaches under contract, and that to our great delight he has succeeded beautifully, and killed them all. We therefore can recommend Mueller’s Bugicide Powder for anyone troubled with cockroaches.”
The Bugicide Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1892 with $3,000 capital stock. Initially John Ulrich Sr. was its president; Stephen Mueller vice president and treasurer; and John Ulrich Jr., secretary.
The company’s first offices were in the Batavian Bank building, 319-321 Main St.; later the firm was located at 512 ½ Main, then 118 N. Third Street.
Bugicide was sold in half-pound cans for 50 cents. It was composed of pyrethrum, a compound manufactured from powdered chrysanthemums, and naphthaline, an insecticide made from coal tar and found in mothballs. Both pyrethrum and naphthaline can cause headache, nausea, coughing and sneezing, and other more serious health effects if inhaled, but perhaps getting rid of cockroaches in the 1890s was worth the tradeoff.
After John Ulrich Sr. died in 1894, Stephen Mueller and John Ulrich Jr. continued together as Bugicide dealers. Mueller, who was originally a barber, ran quite a diversified business. He advertised in the 1897 La Crosse city directory that he sold barbering supplies, birds, goldfish, Bugicide and did all kinds of grinding.
The Bugicide Manufacturing Company was short-lived. By 1900, the business had folded. Stephen Mueller disappeared from La Crosse city directories by 1901, but John Ulrich Jr. remained here as bookkeeper for the Gund Brewery.
This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on March 28, 2020.
This object can be viewed in our online collections database by clicking here.
