Lyon Drug and Variety Store

LOCATION: Hotchkiss near Main Street

All Sites, Tours, Shows, and Rides at Historic Nauvoo are FREE!

The Windsor P. Lyon Home and Store

The Lyon Drug is a treasure trove of many interesting and unusual items. It served as an apothecary and a variety store, providing residents of Nauvoo with nearly everything they needed in this frontier community. Here you will find a device for pulling teeth (the druggist served as dentist also), hair dye (for men only), a pill-making machine, and all varieties of herbs. In the dry goods department you will see such things as eyeglasses, porcelain china, pottery, firearms, and beehives. The store also carried whale and sperm oil. Many residents brought goods they had produced to barter for things they needed.

Lyon Drug and Variety Store had a wide variety of merchandise

Windsor and Sylvia Sessions Lyon owned and operated the store from the time they arrived in Nauvoo until they left during the exodus. Four children were born to the couple in Nauvoo, but sadly, three of their children died before they reached the age of three. Joseph Smith spoke at their oldest daughter’s funeral, giving comfort to the parents, and reassuring all people that they shall, one day, be reunited with their loved ones. Windsor died in Iowa City in 1849, but Sylvia and her children made the journey west in 1854 with her brother who was returning from missionary service in the British Isles.

Be sure to check out the beautiful herb garden and the original log cabin next door where Patty Sessions, Sylvia’s mother, lived.  Patty Sessions was a midwife in Nauvoo.