Louis Kroh Liggett was born on April 4, 1875 in Detroit, Michigan, United States, the youngest of four sons. His father, John Templeton Liggett, was of Scottish ancestry; his mother, Julia Ann (Kroh) Liggett, of Dutch. Both came of Ohio families. John Liggett founded the successful Michigan Mutual Life Insurance Company in 1866, but later investments in an electric trolley failed, leaving the family in reduced circumstances.
Louis left the Detroit public schools before the age of sixteen.
Few years Liggett worked as a runner in a newspaper office, as a salesman for Wanamaker's Detroit outlet, as manager of a bankrupt Michigan store (which he made profitable), and as distributor, with a partner, of a headache remedy. In 1897 Liggett became a salesman for Chester Kent and Company, Boston, distributors of Vinol, a tonic made of cod liver oil and sherry. To increase sales, Liggett suggested that an exclusive agency be designated in each city, founded a "Vinol Club" for druggists distributing the product, and started a newsletter, Vinol Voice.
In 1898, at the age of twenty-three, he became general manager of the company. Liggett saw great sales potential if druggists, who were at the mercy of manufacturers and wholesalers, would combine their buying power. He presented the idea at the meeting of the Vinol Club in 1900 and the following year established Drug Merchants of America, a central buying agency for retail druggists, with one druggist in each city as a stockholder and exclusive agent. Liggett soon expanded his idea to include the manufacture of "own goods" for sale at factory prices to the stockholder-druggists. Thus, on January 1, 1903, the United Drug Company was established in Boston, with Liggett as secretary and general manager; he became president the following year.
The first product was a dyspepsia tablet, but in rapid order other patent medicines were added, along with spices, toilet soap, candy, and rubber goods. An office boy suggested the name Rexal (Liggett added a second "1") for the product line and the cooperating stores. Promotional schemes, which soon made Rexall a household word, included the one-cent sale and Saturday night candy specials. A house organ, Rexall Ad-Vantages, was started, and Liggett sent out frequent "Dear Pardner" letters to the store owners. In 1906 he organized the National Cigar Stands Company, which operated independent tobacco counters in member stores, and in 1908 the United Druggists Mutual Fire Insurance Company. Both became divisions of United Drug. Expansion of the Rexall system was rapid. In 1910 there were 2, 755 agent-stockholders; by 1914 there were 5, 570. Gross annual revenues rose from $1. 4 million in 1909 to $5. 6 million in 1914. Canadian stores were represented by the United Drug Company, Ltd. , of Canada, founded by Liggett in 1909, and Rexall agents were added in England starting in 1912. When the idea of a single outlet in a city proved impractical in large centers, Liggett in 1909 formed another subsidiary corporation, the Louis K. Liggett Company, to operate a chain of drugstores under the Liggett name. In 1920 Liggett acquired the Boots Pure Drug Company of England, a prosperous manufacturing and retail chain.
During the depression of 1921 Liggett experienced heavy personal financial losses when he sought to bolster the sagging price of United Drug stock through large purchases. The company remained sound, however, and loyal stockholder-druggists set up a trust that lent him the money to repay his debts. In 1928 United Drug merged with Sterling Products, manufacturers of such proprietary drugs as Bayer Aspirin, to form Drug, Inc. , with Liggett as chairman of the board. The merger, however, was dissolved in 1933 in the depth of the depression; only the sale of the Boot chain in 1932 enabled the economically distressed United Drug to weather the crisis. Liggett resumed the office of president and continued to direct the company's policies. He became chairman of the board in 1941 and honorary chairman in 1944, when he was succeeded by Justin M. Dart.
Liggett was president of the Boston Chamber of Commerce (1916), chairman of the Pilgrim Tercentenary celebration in 1920, chairman of the Massachusetts Calvin Coolidge Finance Committee (1924), and for several years a Republican national committeeman. His health failed during his last few years, and he lived with a daughter in Washington. He died in a Washington hospital of intestinal cancer at the age of seventy-one. After Congregational services, he was buried at Newton Center, Massachussets, where he had made his home.
Liggett was known as the founder of the drugstore chain. He established the United Drug Company, the National Cigar Stands Company and the United Druggists Mutual Fire Insurance Company. In 1920 the gross annual income of United Drug, Inc. (the holding company formed in 1916 to control the consolidated Liggett companies), was $68, 428, 179.
On June 26, 1895, Liggett married Musa Bence, daughter of George W. Bence, a drug manufacturing executive who later became first vice-president of United Drug. The couple had three children: Leigh Bence, Janice, and Musa Loraine.
