Some of the Haller Products Click photo to Enlarge!

Pain Paralyzer

Healing Powder -- Cloves

Cocoa Powder

Beauty Powder

Advertising Cards

Advertising Cards

What began as a dream and a line of six products eventually expanded into a booming business with a line of over one hundred products and a staff of salesmen visiting pharmacies and farmsteads all over the Midwest.  W. D. Haller operated a pharmacy in Blair where he put his vast knowledge of drugs to use in producing new products for his cliental.  Originally Haller produced six different products including Haller Pain Paralyzer.

In 1888 Haller along with his brothers Theodore and Frank, James and Edward Stewart, F. M. Casttetter, F. H. Clardge and W.H. Belknap, started the Haller Proprietary Company.  The goal of the company was to produce Haller's products in large quantity so that they could be made available to more that just the cliental of Haller's store.  The company was incorporated and expanded in 1897.

From the original six products the company diversified to produce such lines as home remedies, extracts, spices, food products, and toilet articles as well as poultry and veterinary remedies.   The company used all the marketing techniques of the day.  The products were sold in drug stores but they were also sold door-to-door.  Travel was not an easy matter for the hardy families who lived on the farms scattered across the Midwest.  Those farm families welcome the salesman who traveled the dirt roads and brought with them a suitcase full of such products as Green Salve, Oil Amber Compound, Toilet Cream, Vanilla, Insect Powder, and Chic Doc.  The time of mail order bridges and Sears Catalog houses was also a good time for marketing mail order drugs.

The Haller Company received mail orders for their products form all over the United States.  The Haller Building was located on Washington Street in Blair, and there the wide variety of liniments and home remedies were mixed and bottled.

The Haller Company worked hard to build a reputation, and it was said that the name Haller on a bottle was "the stamp of quality and service."

With the advent of modern drugs, The Haller Company closed its doors and took its place in the history of Washington County.  Occasionally bottles and signs bearing the company name can be found at auctions or antiques stores. The Washington County Historical Museum presently has an exhibit of articles relating to the Haller family and business.

This house belong to Sam Haller.  The building was later divided into two separate houses which are located at the corner of 17th and Lincoln Street in Blair.

More Notes:
Vincent J., known as V. J., Smith of Wisconsin, married Jessie Case in Blair, Nebraska in the late 1880's. One son, Zenos B. Smith, was born Janury 17, 1890 in Memphis, Tennesee. Mr. Smith worked in construction with the railroad company and after living in various places moved to a homestead south and west of Redelm, South Dakota, in 1910.
     Jessie's parents were Daniel Watson Case of New York state and Sarah Ann Beales, born in England who came with her family to America in the 1840's, locating in Illinois. They moved to Calhoun, Nebraska in 1856. Daniel died in 1881. Sarah Case married Samuel G. Haller and took up a claim near Redelm about the same year the Smith's homesteaded, but later moved to Blair, Nebraska.
     V. J. and Jessie farmed and ranched in the Redelm community until Mr. Smith passed away in 1938. They were on a vacation trip visiting his people in Michigan and returned to Blair, Nebraska, where Mr. Smith died of a heart attack.  Source

WILLIAM H. BELKNAP has been a resident and active business man of Blair for a quarter of a century and is manager of the Haller Proprietary Remedy Company. Mr. Belknap first came to Washington County, Nebraska, soon after the close of the Civil war, but through the stress of circumstances abandoned his intention of developing a homestead and returned east to take up a business career.

. . . .in 1896 he returned to Nebraska and located at Blair, and has since been manager for the Haller Proprietary Company, a company incorporated for fifty thousand dollars capital. This company manufactures a large line of home remedies and the product is sold and widely distributed over the country.
HISTORY OF DODGE AND WASHINGTON COUNTIES, pg. 595-596

Jacob Haller  1809 - 1894   Genealogy

Birth	9 Jul 1809	Aargau,Switzerland
Gender	Male
Owned Land	25 Mar 1841	East Troy,Walworth,Wisconsin,USA
	in the E1/2SE Base Line 4th PM -1831 Minn/Wis at 4N 18E Section 35
Naturalization	1845	Walworth,Wisconsin,USA
	Naturalization and Declarations of Intent
Died	1 Oct 1894	East Troy,Walworth,Wisconsin,USA
Father	Jacob J. Haller, b. Est 1758/1787, ,,,Switzerland
Family	Anna Elizabeth Kyburz, b. 18 Feb 1813, Oberentfelden,,Aargau,Switzerland
Married	Bef 1835	,,,Switzerland
Children	> 1. Mary Haller, b. Feb 1835, ,,Vermont,USA > 2. Samuel G. Haller, b. 1839, ,,Wisconsin,USA   3. Louisa Haller, b. 1841, ,,Wisconsin,USA > 4. Theodore Haller, b. 1842, ,,Wisconsin,USA > 5. William D. Haller, b. Apr 1846, East Troy,Walworth,Wisconsin,USA   6. Benjamin Franklin Haller, b. 1848, East Troy,Walworth,Wisconsin,USA   7. Anneth Haller, b. Nov 1849, East Troy,Walworth,Wisconsin,USA   8. Jacob J. Haller, b. 1851, East Troy,Walworth,Wisconsin,USA   9. Rosetta Haller, b. 1853, East Troy,Walworth,Wisconsin,USA > 10. Elizabeth Haller, b. Oct 1856, East Troy,Walworth,Wisconsin,USA   11. Susan Matilda Haller, b. 1858, East Troy,Walworth,Wisconsin,USA

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