Many things have been created in Cleveland, Ohio: Superman, the original gas mask design, the modern golf ball design, electric streetcar, shopping mall, lifesavers mints and more. Cleveland was even the first city to have electricity! Among the very impressive list of things invented in Cleveland is the famous over-the-counter ointment known as Musterole.

Pharmacist A. L. McLaren operated a drugstore located at Cedar and E 97th St during the early 1900s. In 1905, he had developed a mustard ointment at this store, and its popularity grew quickly with the public. The drugstore he was operating at this time was far too small and not an adequate environment to meet the growing demand for his product. Because of this, he started restricting sales to regular customers.

George Miller, the owner of a nearby hardware store, had taken notice of the success that this ointment was seeing with the public. Miller decided to sell his store in order to invest and go into business with McLaren to expand the production of the ointment within a new packaging facility. Together, McLaren and Miller reached out to additional investors, and after raising enough money through investments, the Musterole Co. was born. The name Musterole comes from mustard, which is a main ingredient in the ointment. The company was incorporated in 1907, and was initially located at 4612 St. Clair, but finally moved to 1748 E. 27th St.; the location you see in these photos.

The ointment, which had become known as Musterole, was a medicinal rub sort of similar to Vicks VapoRub, as it helped to relieve chest congestion, coughs and minor throat irritations, but also provided pain relieving effects on sore muscles similar to Ben Gay or Icy Hot.

The Musterole Co. quickly grew, and the ointment was being distributed all throughout the U.S. and Canada. What helped it become so popular was that it acted as a great replacement for old-fashioned mustard plasters, which could often leave a lot more skin irritation, and was overall not nearly as pleasant. After World War I, Musterole had achieved worldwide distribution.

So what exactly made it so much better than the older mustard plasters and similar ointments around at the time? 

Marketing.

Well, a bunch of false claims, really. But that has always been a pretty common practice in marketing, though a whole lot more so during that time.

Advertisements for Musterole would claim anything from the ointment being able to prevent pneumonia to curing things like asthma, which could have actually been dangerous. This wasn’t out of the ordinary for medicines at the time. Though the patent-medicine era was finally coming to an end, it wasn’t until 1936 that the statute was revised to ban any fraudulent claims from medicinal product labels. Of course, this still didn’t completely stop companies from making ridiculous claims, because, well…money.

Patent-medicines were all the rage, because so many people would buy into any ridiculous claim slapped onto a label, and people creating these ridiculous medications could make a whole lot of money real fast.

To try and stop these companies from printing claims like this, the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed in 1906. The act also forced companies to accurately label any alcohol, narcotics, or stimulants in the medicines, rather than bothering to ban them altogether. However, companies seemed to completely ignore pretty much any of this.

The Musterole Company once even stated – “Guaranteed under the Pure Food and Drugs Act June 30, 1906..For coughs and colds in the chest, pneumonia, asthma, bronchitis, croup, rheumatism, pleurisy, headache, neuralgia, sore joints, and muscles.”

Of course, Musterole wasn’t the only ointment of this kind making these claims. Around the same time, Vicks VapoRub was stepping into the world, originally under the name of Richardson’s Croupe and Pneumonia Cure Salve. What a name. Eventually the name was changed to Magic Croup Salve, followed by Vicks Salve, and then finally Vicks VapoRub. 

At the time, since Musterole reigned in popularity over others, Vicks was seen as an imitator. However, after a while, Vicks pushed ahead and took first place. A main benefit of Vicks, and others that would be introduced over time, was that they all had a far more pleasant smell. Vicks was also a more popular choice during the great flu epidemic of 1918. 

One thing that did make Musterole different from others though, was that instead of using a mustard poultice like many ointments at the time, it made use of a mixture of mustard oil, menthol and camphor in a base of lard or similar fats. When this was applied to the skin, it proved to be much stronger. However, being combined with lard, not only could it leave blisters on the skin, but could possibly cause far more serious reactions.

Still, Musterole remained an incredibly popular ointment through the mid-1950s. In 1956, the Musterole Company was bought by the Plough Corporation of Tennessee. The company then moved production to their facilities in Memphis, and the Cleveland location was shut down shortly after. Plough eventually merged with the Scherring Pharmaceutical Company in 1970, and continued to manufacture the product under the Scherring-Plough Corporation.  

For a period of time, the production of Musterole had stopped, but in 2019, the product once again began popping up for sale.  

I’m not sure what the property was used for after, but I know it was owned by Harold and Alice Moses. If you remember anything about its use in later years, please leave a comment with any information!

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More photos below:

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