Our History

On November 11, 1864, in the Hall of the St. Louis Medical College, a group of prominent St. Louis leaders decided that pharmacy education should progress from a series of disjointed lectures and assistantships into a formal educational program to meet the needs of a growing city that served as the gateway to the West, thus St. Louis College of Pharmacy was formed.

STLCOP was the eighth such college in America, and the first board consisted of luminaries of the time: Henry Shaw, founder of the Missouri Botanical Garden; John O'Fallon, important businessman and nephew of explorer William Clark; and railroad president Isaac Sturgeon.

Located in the Central West End medical community, 144 years later, the College has become one of the largest colleges of pharmacy in America and a vital part of St. Louis. The College remains one of the very few colleges of pharmacy that is independent and not part of a larger university. Currently, around 72% of practicing pharmacists in the St. Louis region are graduates of the St. Louis College of Pharmacy.