Carole Mullen
Catalog Number: 2017.fic.689
If you were living in La Crosse in the late 19th century, you might have had White Beaver’s Cough Cream on your shelf.
This patent medicine was a bestseller for Dr. Frank Powell, one of La Crosse’s most flamboyant entrepreneurs.
Though its label and contents are missing, this medicine bottle has the slogan, “White Beaver’s Cough Cream Heals Diseased Lungs,” molded into the glass.
Powell’s advertisements describe it as: “A soothing compound of lung-healing root and herb juices, an unrivaled remedy for the cure of coughs, colds, croup, pleurisy, bronchitis and all other diseases of the lung or bronchial tubes. Made only by Dr. Frank Powell, Medicine Doctor of the Winnebago Indians, La Crosse, Wis.”
Frank Powell got his start in medicine early. He was the son of a physician of Scottish descent and a mother who was part Seneca Indian and familiar with herbal remedies.
After Powell’s father died in 1855, Frank, his mother and brothers moved from New York to Chicago, where young Frank worked as a drugstore clerk.
In 1865-66 the family moved again, this time to Omaha, Nebraska, where Frank advanced from clerk to partner of Dr. James Ish. The two men began selling medicines under the label of Ish & Powell.
After graduating from medical school in Kentucky in 1873, Frank Powell returned to Nebraska as a surgeon in the U.S. Army’s Department of the Platte. Here he formed a friendship with William “Buffalo Bill” Cody. He became Medicine Chief of the Winnebago and took the nickname “White Beaver.”
In 1877, Powell went into private practice, locating first in Lanesboro, Minnesota, then La Crosse in 1882. He established a clinic at Second and Main streets (the current Powell Place), where he saw patients and marketed herbal cures.
A vigorous self-promoter, Frank Powell emphasized his image as a frontiersman, sharpshooter and medicine man.
He served as mayor of La Crosse from 1885-1887 and 1893-1897 and ran unsuccessfully for governor. But patent medicines were the foundation of his success. Two of his most popular were White Beaver’s Cough Cream and Wonder Worker.
Powell’s patent medicines sold briskly in a time when medical options were few. But with the passage of the Food and Drugs Act, his remedies were more closely scrutinized.
Both White Beaver’s Cough Cream and Wonder Worker were found to be in violation of the Pure Foods statute. Analysis showed that White Beaver’s Cough Cream contained morphine, chloroform, creosote and alcohol at a strength of 82%. Wonder Worker included similar ingredients, plus camphor, ammonia, and turpentine.
Dr. Frank Powell died May 1906 of a heart attack on a train near El Paso, Texas, closing a colorful era in La Crosse history.
This article was originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on September 5, 2020.
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