The 1920s were a high time for the booming capital city. Jacksonians flocked to the Majestic on Capitol Street to see Douglas Fairbanks in "The Thief of Baghdad," and the Lamar Life Insurance Building (where Eudora Welty's father served as vice president) loomed overhead as the city's first "skyscraper." In beautiful Smith Park there were picnics and evening concerts. If you needed a prescription filled, you would go to Cain's Pharmacy on Fortification Street in the heart of the Belhaven business district. By the 1950s, however, a grocery story had swallowed up the storied pharmacy.
"This location would have been gone if we had not bought it," Randy Calvert says as he sits in a booth along the north wall of his sunny establishment.
Brent's Drug Store has long been a fixture in Jackson, and now there are two locations for Jacksonians to fill a prescription or buy one of coldest and creamiest milk shakes in town. Long-time area pharmacist and businessman Randy Calvert recently opened another Brent's Drugs in the English Village shopping center on Fortification Street, next to McDade's No. 14. The original Brent's in the Woodland Hills neighborhood also remains in operation.
A healthy number of customers mill around looking for cards, cough drops and magazines. Patrons remember the charming soda fountain on North State Street with its neon lights and nostalgic atmosphere. Calvert has been a pharmacist there since 1995.
By 2005, the Winn-Dixie went bankrupt, and stores left the Jackson Metro area, including the one at English Village on Fortification Street. Because of the good working relationship at their Woodland Hills stores, McDade's Grocery banded together with Randy Calvert to save the Old English Village location.
"We did not want to lose another business out of Belhaven," Calvert says.
Both CVS and Rite-Aid pharmacies placed a bid on the lot next to McDade's, but those are not locally owned businesses. Fortunately, Calvert purchased the lot.
The new Brent's is already much like the old Brent's, with all the same sounds of registers clanging, customers conversing and the mechanical whirring of a milk shake blender. Marilyn and Elvis smile down at you from their respective posters.
Apart from the business opportunity, Calvert believes in Jackson and is excited about the revival of the Belhaven neighborhood. He works in close cooperation with the Belhaven Neighborhood Foundation, which has been trying to revive business in the neighborhood. In addition to Brent's, new restaurants will be coming to Fortification Street. The recent renovations on Beale Street in Memphis provide a vision, Calvert believes, for how metro areas like Fortification Street can thrive and transform the city. He has high expectations for the future, and he looks forward to improvements like the new convention center. "We're the capital city of the State of Mississippi, but we have no convention center," he says in disbelief.
Brent's Drugs of Woodland Hills will celebrate its 60th anniversary this year. Randy Calvert looks forward to at least as many years with his new Brent's Drugs of Belhaven.
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