Associated with the historic past as the pioneer druggist of Santa Cruz, John H. Horsnyder knows almost everybody for miles around, and everybody knows, or ought to know him, while all who know him well esteem and honor him for his life and work. A. native of the good old Buckeye state, he was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, January 20, 1857, and as a boy attended the excellent schools of that city. He was graduated from the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy as a member of the Class of ’77, and worked as a prescription clerk and druggist in his native city for nine years. He was also for a time in New York city, so that he had a very fair idea of the larger centers of our country when he pushed on further west and located for a while at Leadville, Colorado.
There he established business for himself, but the climate did not agree with him and so he left that section of the country and came on to California. In 1881 he reached Santa Cruz, and soon afterward purchased his present place of business. This drug store had been started in 1878 by J. F. Cristal who sold it to Messrs. Huber & Champion, who conducted it only a few months, when they sold it to Mr. Horsnyder. Since that early period of the ’80s he has been in the drug business, and continuously for forty-three years has been located on Pacific avenue. By his reliability, enterprise and progressive methods he has made a splendid record. For thirty-eight years he answered night calls and was at the beck and call of the public, but now his is the only drug store in Santa Cruz that closes at 6 p. m. He has always made a specialty of scientifically-considered, carefully put-up prescriptions, and has regular customers who have been with him for many years. Only those who have looked with deep regret upon the decadence of the modern American drugstore with all its trapperies and its varied stock, having nothing to do with drugs, will appreciate to the full such a standard, and thoroughly dependable house as that of John H. Horsnyder, the pioneer druggist.
Fraternally an Elk, Mr. Horsnyder belongs to Santa Cruz Lodge No. 824, and his many friends have long accorded him classification with the “best people on earth.”
Source: History of Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties, California : cradle of California’s history and romance : dating from the planting of the cross of Christendom upon the shores of Monterey Bay by Fr. Junipero Serra, and those intrepid adventurers who accompanied him, down to the present day. Chicago: S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1925.