Pharmacist prescribes retirement after 44

Pharmacist prescribes retirement after 44-year career downtown

Jan. 25, 2000

by JIM MIMIAGA

Across small-town America, independently-owned businesses increasingly are becoming an endangered species as deep-pocketed retail conglomerates move in to compete for a limited amount of consumer dollars.

That’s great for shoppers, but it also represents a shift in how small-time merchants operate their businesses in the face of fierce market competition.

Cortez’s Main Street will lose a 65-year-old landmark business at the end of this month when Wilson’s Pharmacy flips over the closed sign for the last time.

Owner and pharmacist Ken Wilson is not closing because of the opening of the Wal-Mart Superstore, he said; rather, he is simply retiring after serving the community’s prescription needs for the past 44 years. Yet there is a link.

“I’ve been trying to sell for the last three years but it’s been difficult because stores like that can afford to pay a lot more for a pharmacist,” Wilson said. “My wife and I put in 50 or 60 hours a week here and bring in less per year than they pay for pharmacists working 40-hour weeks. So that’s what I’m up against, which makes it tough to attract a pharmacist who wants his own store.”

Competition and wider selection is always good for consumers, Wilson pointed out, and keeps smaller shops from becoming complacent, especially regarding customer service.

“That’s the niche small businesses need to focus on in order to compete at their level; you can’t do it price-wise,” he said. “Good customer service for me has meant opening the doors after hours for someone, or working extra hours.

“There is a place for more small businesses, but it depends on what they offer. Specialty shops that meet a need are more likely to make it. The danger is opening a store that could be easily wiped out by a larger company that comes in later.”

Since Wilson’s sandstone block building was first built in 1888, numerous locally-owned and operated businesses have come and gone.

In 1890 the Guillet Mercantile occupied the space along with a barbershop, lunch counter, classic soda fountain, and pool hall. Later on it was rented out by the offices of the Cortez Herald, a meat market, RR Smith General Merchandise, Valley Market, Layman Hardware and Cortez Furniture.

Wilson’s Pharmacy arrived in 1934.

The two-story structure on Main and Market streets is commonly referred to as the cornerstone of downtown Cortez because of its historic reputation as a key commercial district and community meeting place whose owners had a vestige interest in the town’s collective success. It has over the years become a nostalgic symbol of a time when local entrepreneurs could more easily set up shop, work hard, and make an honest living.

Nowadays that’s becoming more of a challenge to do in the shadow of retail giants that can afford lower prices and higher salaries, Wilson said. But the allure of personal ownership and the business freedoms that represents offers hope for the future.

“There is an attractive quality to owning your own business and I think that will always be around here on Main,” Wilson said. “As business owner you have the satisfaction of making your own decisions and being able to run it the way you want to and not just managing it for somebody else. It becomes more of a personal achievement.”