Financed by entrepreneur Gertrude Ozmun, who paid $14,000 for the corner lot in 1914, the Fair Oaks Pharmacy opened in 1915 as the South Pasadena Pharmacy, designed by Arthur Burnett Benton in his characteristic Mission Revival vocabulary. Ozmun believed South Pasadena was destined for retail success, and her timing proved prescient. The building sits directly on the historic Route 66 alignment at the intersection of Mission Street and Fair Oaks Avenue, positioning it on the western terminus of the "Mother Road" from Chicago to Santa Monica. As one of the final communities before Los Angeles, South Pasadena became a significant destination for Dust Bowl migrants in the 1930s and postwar road-trippers, making this corner pharmacy both neighborhood institution and highway landmark.
The two-story commercial corner building displays the restrained vernacular Mission Revival style typical of early California commercial architecture, without the elaborate ornamentation of Benton's grander civic projects. Inside, the ground floor pharmacy and soda fountain retain authentic tin ceilings, honeycomb tile floors, and antique pharmacy fixtures that define its period character. A 1990s restoration returned the interior to its original appearance, including the installation of a period-authentic soda fountain counter sourced from the Me Gee Pharmacy in Joplin, Missouri, itself a Route 66 landmark. This salvaged fixture creates a literal material connection between the eastern and western ends of America's most mythologized highway, linking two pharmacy interiors separated by 1,500 miles of asphalt.
