eorge C. Thaxter was born at Bangor, Maine, October 14, 1842. When only 14 years old he was compelled by his father's illness to quit school and look after his parent's interest in a marble-cutting establishment. A year afterward he entered the drugstore of B. F. Bradbury, and worked there until his father's death in the fall of 1861. In the following spring he enlisted in the Eleventh Maine Volunteer Infantry, but after a few mouths' service was discharged for chronic disability, and returned to Maine broken in health. After a partial recovery he opened a drugstore at Newport, Me., which he continued until February, 1868. He then went to Iowa, but in 1869 removed to Nevada. For nine years Mr. Thaxter, in partnership with his brother-in-law, followed lumbering at Lake Tahoe and Carson City, until the plant, the Glenbrook Mill, was destroyed by fire, when he returned to his former business as a druggist, in Carson City. In 1888 he was a delegate from Nevada to the National Convention at Chicago, which nominated Benjamin Harrison for the presidency. He was also a member of the Nevada Legislature, and one of the few through whose active opposition the scheme of fastening the Louisiana Lottery upon the state was defeated.

Mr. Thaxter was married at Newport, Maine, December 11, l864, to Miss Mabelle Davis, of Dexter, Me. They have four children, three sons and a daughter. In 1892 Mr. Thaxter went to Palo Alto, Cal., to educate three of his children at Stanford University. The oldest son, who graduated there as an electrical engineer, is now superintendent of the West Side Lighting Company of Los Angeles. In the spring of 1896 he learned that the drugstore of Dr. D.W. Stewart, in Redlands, was for sale. He purchased the business, and took charge June 1 of the same year.

In 1878 Mr. Thaxter took up rifle practice as a relief from business cares and became an expert marksman. From that time until he left Nevada he was Ordinance Officer on the staff of Major-General Charles Forman, of the Nevada Militia. April 26 last, he was appointed Inspector of Rifle Practice, to succeed H.H. Sinclair, on the staff of Col. John R. Berry, of the Seventh Regiment, N.G.C. Mr. Thaxter's long experience and brilliant success as a rifleman eminently qualify him for this position.

In succeeding to the Stewart Pharmancy Mr. Thaxter took up a well established business, which he has maintained and increased. His store is a model of taste and completeness in finishing and equipment, one of the handsomest in California. Everything demanded in an up-to-date drugstore is found here. Especial attention is paid to the wants of tourists, who may not only have their prescriptions carefully filled, but may also buy Califonia curios, the latest novelties in stationery, Gunther's Chicago-made candies, and delicious ice-cream sodas. Mr. Thaxter tolerates nothing spurious or second-class in his drug department proper. Purity and quality are the first considerations, together with care and skill in the compounding of prescriptions. In a word, Thaxter's Pharmacy, on a basis of absolutely square dealing, well deserves continued and increase prosperity.

(Source: Illustrated Redlands, 1897, p. 93.)