Eckerd Corporation
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| Fate | Partially sold to CVS in 2004, Acquired by Rite Aid in 2007 |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1898 |
| Defunct | 2007 (acquired and sold) |
| Headquarters |
Largo, Florida Warwick, Rhode Island |
| Products | Pharmacy, Cosmetics, Health and Beauty Aids, General Merchandise, Snacks, 1 Hour Photo |
| Parent | Rite Aid |
| Website | Eckerd.com (2006 archive) |
Eckerd Corporation was an American drug store chain that was headquartered in Largo, Florida, and toward the end of its life, in Warwick, Rhode Island.
The chain had approximately 2,800 stores in 23 states as far west as Arizona. In 2004 it was the fourth largest drug chain in the U.S. In April 2004, the company (then a subsidiary of J. C. Penney) was broken up in a $4.52 billion deal, with approximately 1269 stores in Florida, Louisiana and Texas, along with Eckerd's $1.3 billion mail order pharmacy, sold to CVS Corporation (now CVS Health). The deal enabled CVS to leapfrog past rival Walgreens with some 5,400 stores. Because CVS already owned 74 stores in Florida at the time, including 19 in the Tampa Bay Area, many duplicate locations were closed. The remaining stores were sold to the Quebec-based Jean Coutu Group and merged with its Brooks Pharmacy chain. The Eckerd name and corporate headquarters, which housed 1,000 administrative workers at the time in Largo, Florida would remain temporarily intact while under the Coutu ownership. The sale erased the chain's name among its 622 Florida stores, where it had been synonymous with the pharmacy business since Jack Eckerd bought three old drugstores in the Tampa Bay area in 1952.Brooks Eckerd, Jean Coutu's U.S. operations would eventually be sold to Rite Aid. In return, a stake in Rite Aid was ceded to the French-Canadian company. The remaining Eckerd locations became Rite Aids.
Eckerd was founded in September 1898 (making it the oldest of the "big four" drugstore chains), by 27-year-old J. Milton Eckerd and Z. Tatom in Erie, Pennsylvania. In the company's early years, it operated at 1105 State Street in downtown Erie as the Erie Cut-Rate Medicine Store. In 1912, Eckerd and Tatom sold their original store to Eckerd's sons and moved to Wilmington, Delaware, establishing a new store. From Delaware, the chain expanded to North Carolina and later Florida.Jack Eckerd, son of the founder, was responsible for the expansion of the company when he acquired three stores in Florida in 1952.
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