“This is the only place I can bring my grandson that’s exactly the same as when I was a kid.” – Brent’s customer
1946 – Brent’s Drugs with soda fountain opened by pharmacist Alvin Brent (University of Mississippi).
1977 – Owned and operated by pharmacists Paul Heflin (University of Mississippi), who had worked in the store since 1951, and Bob Grantham (University of Mississippi), who had worked in the store since 1962.
1992 – Owned and operated by pharmacist Bob Grantham.
1995 – 2009 – Owned and operated by pharmacist Randy Calvert (University of Mississippi).
2009 – Pharmacy business sold to CVS and removed from the original building. Soda fountain and retail business owned and operated by Jackson attorney and Fondren resident Brad Reeves, who bought Brent’s “to save a piece of Fondren history.”
History of Brent’s Drugs
Brent’s Drugs opened its doors in 1946 soon after the completion of Morgan Center, the first shopping center in Mississippi which would later be renamed Woodland Hills Shopping Center. Architect R.W. Naef designed the shopping center, in addition to First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, the nearby Federation of Women’s Clubs Headquarters and the original University Hospital just across the street at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Brent’s original layout included an entryway into the neighboring Jitney-Jungle, which was the company’s first shopping center supermarket. Brent’s is the only original remaining tenant in the shopping center. Pharmacist Alvin Brent left Patterson’s Drug in the Plaza Building downtown (at the time known as Standard Life Building) to open up his own pharmacy and soda fountain. Brent owned and ran the pharmacy until he sold it to pharmacists Paul Heflin and Bob Grantham in 1977. Heflin had worked at Brent’s since 1951 and Grantham since 1962. In 1992, Grantham took over sole ownership and management of the business. Pharmacist Randy Calvert purchased Brent’s in 1995 and he owned and operated Brent’s until April 2009 when the pharmacy was sold. Fondren resident Brad Reeves purchased Brent’s Drugs in July 2009. Reeves maintains ownership and Becky Arrington manages the daily affairs of the soda fountain and gift shop.
About the Architect
R.W. Naef worked in the office of N. W. Overstreet, Mississippi’s first registered architect from 1928 to 1931. Edward Welty, the brother of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eudora Welty, was a draftsman for Naef from 1934 until 1953 so it is very likely that he was involved in the development of Morgan Center. Naef’s recognizable projects include: Gulf Park campus of USM (1926), Buie Memorial Building at Millsaps College (1936), Richland School (1936), St. Francis Xavier School- Vicksburg (1936), Coxburg School- Holmes County (1937), Brookhaven High School (1937), Paramount Theater- Jackson, (1937), Pearl River Community College (1938), Pisgah School (1938), Library (Fielding Wright Art Center), Whitfield Gymnasium & Broom Hall at Delta State (1939-1947), Franklin Academy- Columbus (1939), Temple Beth Israel- Jackson (1940), Union (Trailways) Bus Station- Jackson (1940), Mississippi State Sanatorium- Simpson County (1940), DeSoto County Courthouse (1941), Camp Van Dorn- Centreville (1942), Braden Elementary School- Natchez (1948), Shelby School (1949), College Park Auditorium (Rose Emily McCoy Auditorium)- Jackson State (1952), Greenville High School (1953), Yazoo City Junior High School (1954), Mississippi Board of Health Building (1956), Greenwood High School (1957), Chastain Middle School (1958), Whitten Middle School (1960), Wingfield High School (1964), Mayes Hall, Hedleston Hall, Leavell Hall, Garland Hall, Somerville Hall, Weir Memorial Building, Kennon Observatory, Lewis Hall (Physics Building), Alumni House, J.D. Williams Library, Carrier Hall & Kincannon Hall at Ole Miss (1938-1970) along with major additions to Central High School- Jackson, Heidelberg Hotel, Forest Hill School, University High School- Oxford, Merchants Bank and Trust (Regions Bank Building) and Farley Hall at Ole Miss.
History of Fondren
The Fondren neighborhood began in 1833 as part of a large 5,000 acre plantation located three miles north of Jackson, Mississippi. Owned by the Garland family, it was broken up during the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War. A small settlement had formed at the extreme southwest part of the area, nestled in the fork between Canton Road and the old Tougaloo Plantation Road, now called North State Street. The fork was also the location of a state asylum which later became the area for construction of four Fondren area hospitals. The initial inhabitants of the community worked in the hospital, and the only store at the fork was David Fondren’s General Merchandise and Fancy Grocery. In 1894 a government post office located in the store adopted the Fondren name for the community. The Fondren Post Office continues today, located about one-hundred yards to the north of the original store site.
In the early years a trolley line ran from downtown Jackson to the hospital, ending at a turntable near the fork, across from the asylum. The hospital moved its 1,200 patients to Whitfield in the 1920′s and the site eventually became the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Fondren was becoming a well established community by then, and was supporting commercial ventures such as restaurants, a drugstore and a hardware store. The city of Jackson to the south was growing as well, and in 1925 the city annexed the Fondren area. It was the first time that a developed community would be included in a Jackson annexation, and is the reason that Fondren has a “small town feel” within the larger metro area. Although Fondren had succumbed to “urban sprawl” it would still maintain its small town character in the years to come.
By 1928 the first school, Duling Elementary, was constructed in Fondren, and the automobile had arrived to replace the streetcar. This change in times and economic prosperity would eliminate the need for the small lots required to keep people close to the trolley line and allow larger, estate size planning, such as evidenced by the Woodland Hills neighborhood. Following World War II, a post-war building boom added significantly to the housing stock to accommodate returning GIs. The suburbs had arrived and the diversity of the Fondren community was enhanced.
In the 1940′s the first speculative suburban shopping center in Mississippi, Morgan Center, now known as Woodland Hills Shopping center, was built just north of the fork. The center was Art Deco in style and it influenced a number of similar designs in the area, such as the location of Walker’s Drive In. An Art Deco movie theater, the Pix/Capri was built in 1939 and became the first Jackson theater to locate outside of the downtown area. Jackson’s first suburban “high-rise” office building, the Dale Building, was erected in Fondren in 1956, where the current Fondren Corner development exists. Additional shopping, banks, gas stations, hardware stores, barber shops, drug stores, restaurants and churches were added to the mix. In this rush of development, David Fondren’s grocery first relocated across the street, and then succumbed to the competition of both a local grocery chain and an A&P Food Store. It closed in 1953, but the commercial center it started continues to thrive today.
