Collier Drug Stores Inc.

M.M. Collier opened the Red Cross Drug Store on the downtown Fayetteville square in 1917. Ever since then, the Collier clan has been Fayetteville’s first family of pharmacies.

In 1930, Morris G. Collier joined his father’s business.

In 1950, the family opened a store on Dickson Street and named it Collier’s Drug Store. They continued to operate the Red Cross Drug Store until it was destroyed by a fire in 1955.

The two stores were then consolidated at the Dickson Street location, which later doubled in size when the store was expanded north into a building that was previously home to a lumber yard.

At the new location, Collier’s was a modern pharmacy with an old-timey atmosphere that featured a soda fountain and booths. When the doors opened on Dickson Street in 1950, they opened with the help of electricity. At the time, only one other building in Arkansas had electric doors: the state Capitol.

The new Collier’s was also the first Kodak dealer in Arkansas, said Mel Collier, who serves as operations manager for the company and is the great-grandson of the founder. During those days, pharmacies often sold the chemicals used to develop film and print photographs.

In the 1970s, Morris Collier’s sons, Carl Collier and Morris H. Collier, took over the business. In 1973, the store became the fourth pharmacy in the United States to use a computer to keep track of prescriptions.

The company expanded to four stores after buying Fayetteville Drug Store in 1985 but later closed two of those stores. Collier now has six stores: three in Fayetteville and one each in Springdale, Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove. Meredith Collier, Mel’s sister, also joined the family business and works with accounts payable.

Collier Drug now has about 70 employees. The company posted sales of $14 million in 2001, up about $1 million from the previous year.