Eckerd Drugs
The Eckerd chain, oldest of the major drugstore companies in the U.S., was founded by Jack's father, J. Milton Eckerd, in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1898. After serving as a pilot in World War II, Jack Eckerd started a phenomenal expansion of the chain by buying three stores in Florida in 1952. The company went public as Jack Eckerd Corp. in 1961 and when Eckerd sold his shares in 1986, there were about 1,500 stores.
The chain was later sold to J.C. Penney, who built the number of stores to 2,600 before selling to rivals CVS and Jean Coutu. Stores in ten states from Florida west to Arizona became CVS; the stores from Georgia north to New York continued as Eckerd Corporation, run by Jean Coutu's US arm along with its New England-based Brooks chain.
In July 2007 Coutu's 1,549 Eckerd stores across the Mid-Atlantic and New England became part of the Rite Aid drugstore chain, finally ending more than a century of the Eckerd name in drug retailing.
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Famous quotes containing the word drugs:
“There is not much sense in suffering, since drugs can be given for pain, itching, and other discomforts. The belief has long died that suffering here on earth will be rewarded in heaven. Suffering has lost its meaning.”
—Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (b. 1926)