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 November 1996, Eckerd drugs was purchased by J.C. Penney. In 2004, it was the fourth largest drug chain in the U.S. In April 2004, the company (then a subsidiary of JCPenney) was broken up in a $4.52 billion deal, with approximately 1,269 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 loc