Peoples Drug

Peoples Drug was a chain of drug stores based in Washington, D.C.

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History

Beginning

Peoples Drug was founded by Malcolm Gibbs in 1904, and by 1930 had 110 stores operating under Peoples Drugs, Days Drug, and Shearer Drug names.

By 1975, Peoples had grown to 500 stores. Later in the year, the chain was purchased by Lane Drug of Ohio. The new company retained the Peoples name, and included Lane Drug, Schuman Drug, Dynamic Drug, Health Mart, Reed Drug, and Lee Drug.

Acquision by Imasco

In 1984, Peoples was acquired by the Canadian conglomerate Imasco. Imasco was the Canadian arm of British American Tobacco, and also owned Shoppers Drug Mart, Canada's premiere drug store chain. Shortly after Imasco's takeover, Peoples acquired Rea & Derick and Haag Drug. Peoples and its divisions had close to 800 stores and became one of the country's leading drug chains.

Sales and Conversions

Over the next couple of years, the Haag stores were converted to Peoples, and Dynamic and Schuman were converted to Lane Drug. Peoples decided to sell some of their stores and concentrate on the Mid Atlantic states.

The first sale was the Atlanta based Reed Lee Drug to Big B Drugs. The 85 store division gave Big B their entrance into the Atlanta market in a big way. The next sale was Lane drug to Rite Aid Drugs, effectve April 11, 1989. The last phase was the Indiana division of Peoples being sold to management, changing the former Peoples stores to Reliable Drugs. Reliable lasted two to three years prior to being bought by Rite Aid.

CVS Corporation Sale

After the dust settled from the sales, Imasco decided to unload the Peoples Drug chain, as Peoples wasn't performing at the level Imasco had hoped. In late 1990, CVS Corporation purchased Peoples. CVS kept the Peoples Drug name in place, remodeled most stores to the CVS format and improved the stores tremendously. The Peoples name was considered to be too strong a name to change it to CVS immediately. The name did ultimately change in May of 1994, just a few months before the Peoples Drug name would have celebrated its 90th anniversary.

Trivia

• In his autobiography My American Journey, former U.S. Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell described that in the mid-1970's, he painted a rusty 1962 Chevorlet Bel Air sedan (in which his wife, Alma, hated to be seen) with white latex paint that he bought at a Peoples Drug store.
• Because several of the Soviet-dominated nations of Eastern Europe were called "People's Republics", it was joked that "Peoples Drug" was the only non-communist organization called "Peoples". Probably, "Peoples" is the family name of an early participant.