C. Walgreen Jr. 100, helped build drugstore chain

Charles Walgreen Jr., 100, who helped build his father's drugstore chain into America's biggest, died yesterday at his home in Northfield, Ill. The cause of death was not announced.

Mr. Walgreen became president of Walgreen Co. in 1939 after his father's death, and held that office until 1963, the company said. He was chairman until 1976, when he retired to focus on sailing, a hobby that took him as far as Antarctica. During his tenure, sales grew more than 11-fold to $817 million from $72 million.

Mr. Walgreen revolutionized the retail drug business in the 1950s when he converted stores from clerk-assisted shopping to self-service. He also helped improve the working conditions of pharmacists, reducing their weekly hours from about 66 in 1939 to a standard 40.

Born March 4, 1906, in Chicago, Mr. Walgreen grew up in the drugstore business. He worked as a delivery boy at his father's second store. By age 11 was carrying his mother's homemade soup to its new lunch counter.

He also worked under his father in personnel, sales and manufacturing, showing a talent in securing Depression-era leases for the stores. His father, Charles Walgreen Sr., called him "a good negotiator with a million-dollar smile."

In 1971, the retired Mr. Walgreen earned an unlimited ocean captain's license from the U.S. Coast Guard. He spent much of the next 18 years traveling the globe on his yacht.

At age 89, he traveled to Antarctica, where he surveyed a 1,000-mile stretch of shoreline called the Walgreen Coast, named by family friend Admiral Richard Byrd in honor of his father.

Mr. Walgreen ordered a new yacht built at age 95 and, two years later with his wife and a staff including nurses, cruised through the Panama Canal and to the Galapagos Islands.

He is survived by his wife, Jean, three children, 23 grandchildren and 33 great-grandchildren.