Old maps show this as the Lohr Building, owned by A. C. Lohr. Lohr was a patent-medicine peddler who promoted himself as “the Plant Juice man,” selling a supposedly herbal concoction called Plant Juice that would treat “all forms of stomach, liver and kidney trouble and blood disorders,” according to identical articles planted in the Gazette Times and the Press for July 13, 1914. Pittsburgh is most famous for glass, iron, and steel, but in the golden age of patent medicines it was one of the most important centers of medical hooey in the country, and fortunes were made here in that trade.
The storefront retains its corner entrance, but with the step up from South Avenue blocked by a planter.
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