Jack Goldberg

Biography

Jack Goldberg was born in 1906 to Russian Jewish immigrant parents, who migrated to Colorado in the late 19th century. Jack was one of nine children. He was also the cousin of Lou Tobin, Jewish pharmacist and owner of Tobin’s Pharmacy. The family lived under the Viaduct on Denver’s West Side. One of Jack’s brothers, Max, became the well-known publisher of the Intermountain Jewish News. During the 1920s, Jack and another brother set out for Detroit to work in the automotive industry, but bad weather stranded them in Chicago, where Jack found work as a clerk in Walgreens. He fell in love with the pharmacy business and returned to Colorado, where he attended the Capitol School of Pharmacy. Jack became what was then jokingly referred to as a “six month wonder,” as at the time it only took half a year to earn certification as a pharmacist. He went to work in a local drug store, and in the late 1930s, Jack opened his own Crest Drug Store at 16th and Welton in downtown Denver. He and his wife Goldie became the parents of two daughters, Marlene and Gloria. After Jack closed Crest Drug Store in 1971, he went on to work for other pharmacists like Eisenberg’s Capitol Heights Drug and Ideal Drug, owned by Bookie Rabinhoff. Jack remained an active pharmacist until he was 94.