History of aspirin mid-eighteenth century. By the nineteenth century pharmacists were experimenting with and prescribing a variety of chemicals related to salicylic acid, the active component of willow extract. In 1853, chemist Charles Frédéric Gerhardt treated acetyl chloride with sodium salicylate to produce acetylsalicylic acid for the first time; in the second half of the nineteenth century, other academic chemists established the compound's chemical structure and devised more efficient methods of synthesis. In 1897, scientists at the drug and dye firm Bayer began investigating acetylsalicylic acid as a less-irritating replacement for standard common salicylate medicines, and identified a new way to synthesize it.
Willow Bunch, Saskatchewan Willow Bunch community, settled in what is part of the present-day Jean Louis Légaré Regional Park. Légaré, who married into the Métis community, opened a trading post/store there, and often traded various necessities to the local Métis for bison goods. In the spring of 1881, it was estimated he had around $3,000 worth of bison products in his store. A boy named Édouard Beaupré, better known as the Willow Bunch Giant, was the first child born and baptized in the area in 1881. The forerunner settlement of Willow Bunch was established in 1883, around two miles east of Légaré's store