The G.G. Green Story
Information courtesy of the Woodbury Historical Society

George Gill Green (January 16, 1842 – February 26, 1925) was a patent medicine entrepreneur, and Colonel in the American Civil War. He was born in Clarksboro, New Jersey to Ellen and Lewis M. Green. George attended the University of Pennsylvania medical school for two years, but left in 1864 before he graduated. He enlisted in the 142nd Regiment, Illinois Volunteers during the Civil War. In 1867 he started a wholesale drug business in Baltimore, Maryland but the factory was destroyed by a fire. He moved to Ohio and married Angie Brown and had their first child there. They moved to Woodbury, New Jersey on Thanksgiving Day; November 23, 1872. They had a son: George Gill Green II (1883-1971) who was born on January 17, 1883 and died in January 1971.

George bought the rights to "Green's August Flower" and "Dr. Boschee's German Syrup" from his father, Lewis M. Green, who sold the elixir under the name "L.M. Green". George created a marketing campaign involving mass mailings of free samples, and the distribution of thousands of his almanacs.  Those mass mailings made Woodbury one of the top revenue-producing post offices in the state. He became a millionaire and began building properties and businesses across the country. In addition to medicine and glassmaking factories he built in the city in the late 1800s, he owned a hotel in Pasadena, California, that he visited in his private rail car.  Hotel Green is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the California State Historic Register, and the City of Pasadena Register of City Treasures.   Besides building a hotel at Cooper Street and Evergreen Avenue for his guests, Green in 1880 also erected a downtown building for shopping, and later for opera and other performances.  “G.G. Green Block” is still the name affixed near the building's neoclassical roofline.

In addition to staging shows and lectures, the theater also became a movie house, refurbished in 1920 as the Rialto, with a pipe organ to accompany silent films.  By 1935, the 1,100-seat Rialto was the first theater in South Jersey to have air conditioning.  The building’s upper floors also served as National Guard headquarters and a nearby school’s gymnasium.




For over 45 years, the Green Block building was leased to a women’s wear store operated by Charming Shoppes, a retailer based in Bensalem, Pa.  However, the firm’s Fashion Bug outlet closed in 2001, and the G.G. Green building has since stood vacant and silent.  Remnants of the old theater still remain in the building. Above the retail store’s suspended ceiling, the theater balcony survives along with the stage.

The three-story, brick building’s opera house held “luxuriant opera chairs and colored decoration,” advertisements said. The ground floor housed such popular stores as T. Earl Budd groceries and C.W.

His patent medicine business declined after the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 and by 1916 the products were discontinued. He died in Woodbury, New Jersey on February 26, 1925
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