Indiana Medical History Museum

Hook's Drug Store Museum

Hook's Drug Store Museum, located at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, offers visitors an immersive journey into an authentic late 19th-century Indiana drugstore, faithfully recreated from an outstanding collection of pharmaceutical antiques dating from the 1870s-1900s era. Opened in August 1966 to commemorate Indiana's sesquicentennial, the museum was created by Hook's Drug Stores vice president James M. Rogers, who collected drugstore fixtures from throughout the state. The museum features some of the most beautiful pre-Civil War cabinets anywhere in the United States, including stunning walnut and ash cabinets originally installed in Cambridge City, Indiana. Housed in a 1927 bungalow-style building originally constructed for the Better Babies Contests, the museum showcases the dramatic progress in medicinal science over the past 150 years, including the rise of patent medicines and efforts to regulate fraudulent medical claims. The fully functional soda fountain, dating from about 1877, continues to serve thousands of ice cream sodas and phosphates, maintaining the authentic drugstore experience where healing, community, and commerce once intersected. Since opening, an estimated three million visitors have experienced this nationally acclaimed attraction, which operates as both a museum and a limited-scale functioning drugstore.