The Cordray family has been a staple in Galveston for more than 150 years, and one of its most famous members owned the original Cordray Drug Store that was located at 1501 Postoffice at the southwest corner of Fifteenth Street. It was owned by Edmund Lawrence Cordray (1879-1965) and wife Mary Agnes Hancock (1881-1961). 

 Lost to demolition in 1977, the building was a registered Texas Historic Landmark and had a history as colorful as the land where it was built. 

 In the years preceding the Civil War, John S. Sydnor, one of Galveston’s early business and community leaders, traded slaves on a large auction block at the site. Its proximity to the waterfront and roads inland is said to have contributed to the large crowds the slave market drew, adding to Sydnor’s considerable fortune.

 In 1866, the cement auction block was used as part of the foundation of a carpenter’s shop built by J. R. Alexander. It was “rebuilt” in 1875 (possibly due to damage from the same hurricane that devastated Indianola), and the building was expanded in 1899. 

 A two-story portion of the building, with seven rooms and one bathroom, served as the residence. The original one-room frame structure, built from native wood and topped with a tin roof, provided space for the business. 

 By 1910, a German family - Mr. and Mrs. Jensen and their three children - moved into the two-story home. The patriarch ran a tailor shop, and his wife operated a grocery on the ground floor. 

 Just a few doors down, at 1515 Postoffice, lived Margaret Hancock and her three sons, as well as Margaret’s daughter Mary, Mary’s husband Edmund Cordray, and the couple’s four children; and Paul Cordray, half-brother of Edmund. 

 After working as a pharmacist at several locations around the island, Edmund Cordray had the opportunity to purchase the building at 1501-1503 Postoffice in 1918, and he established the Cordray Drug Store. 

 Though the exterior of the building remained virtually unchanged - other than the addition of tin signs advertising Coca-Cola, 7-up, and Gulf gasoline, which was sold from a single pump - the interior saw minor changes: A wall was erected inside to create a small storage area, and shelves were put up to store the drug items. A soda fountain was also installed where Purity ice cream, locally made, was served. 

 Cordray Drug Store became a meeting place for locals and served as a U.S. military service registration location during wartime. During its first year, Cordray and his friends met at the store in the evenings to discuss World War I, referring to European maps tacked on the walls on which they tracked the course of advance and attack of the Armed Forces. 

 He later studied optometry and equipped a room to the side of the drugstore as a space for fitting eyeglasses. 

 Extremely active in the local Catholic church, Cordray had the honor of having the Award of the Knight of the Holy Sepulchre bestowed upon him by Pope Pius XII. 

 As busy as these endeavors kept him, Cordray later pursued a hobby that would reemerge in the family generations later: flipping houses. He was the great-grand-uncle of Michael Cordray, who, along with his wife Ashley, stars in the television show Restoring Galveston on the Magnolia Network. 

 He began to purchase houses and renovated the carpentry and plumbing before reselling them. He enjoyed it so much, in fact, that he leased out the operation of his store and spent the remainder of his life restoring homes and traveling. 

 On August 25, 1965, Cordray died at the age of 86, and the family sold the store. Two years later, the Texas Historical Commission (THC) presented a medallion in honor of the building’s history to its then-owner, Lee Valentine. 

 The city condemned the building in 1977 and forced the owner to tear it down. The historic medallion, which had been placed at the drugstore in 1967, was given to Cordray’s daughter, Florence Beaulieu. 

 The East End Historical Society leased the lot and received permission to move the 1895 Victor Gustafson cottage to the site to be used as an office and meeting place for the historical group. 

 In 1985, the THC erected a historic marker in front of the cottage, which includes a brief history of the Gustafson home, as well as the Cordray Drug Store that preceded it on the site.