Forsyth County and downtown Cumming have seen a lot of changes over the last 60 years, growing from an estimated 12,000 residents in 1960 to more than 233,000, and Goodson Drugs, has been here for all of it.

Goodson Drugs opened its doors on Friday, July 24, 1959 just across the street from its current location, an area now on the grounds of the Forsyth County Courthouse Annex, and with their store’s 60th anniversary just around the corner, is still owned by the same family.

“We started out, and the first day we broke $100, we thought we might make it,” said Jim Goodson, whose father, Jim Sr., opened the store. “It took us about two years before we ever broke $300 a day. My dad said when we took in $300 that he thought we were going to make it.”

Along with working with his father, Jim Goodson now runs the store with his son, Lee. All three generations have worked as pharmacists, and many of their family members have worked alongside them.

“We all graduated from [The University of Georgia]: my father, me and Lee and my brother [Phil] who runs the [Goodson] store up in Dawson [County],” Jim said. “Lee’s worked here since he was 8 or 9. We’ve all worked here. My brothers worked here.

“Byron, my dad’s brother — my uncle — he still works here, he’s out there today and grandma — Dad’s mom — she worked here until probably five or six years before she passed away,” Lee added. “She worked up front, so it’s definitely a family business.”

Jim said the store has seen a lot of changes in neighbors over the years and was able to easily name-off a number of businesses formerly downtown, such as Mary Alice Hospital, Busy Bee Café, Cumming Jewelry Co., and Ramey’s Dry Goods Store.

Most of those early customers were farmers.

“It was different when we first opened up because you did all of your business in the mornings,” Jim said. “The old farmers in their white shirts and hats and all of them wore overalls, they would all be lined up there. If you were two minutes late they’d be, ‘Where ya been? You gonna sleep all day?’

“Saturday was your big day because everybody came to town on Saturday. Wednesdays, everything closed up. We’d stay open on Wednesday morning being a pharmacy, but Wednesday afternoon, we closed down.”

In 1970, the pharmacy moved to its current location to have a little more space. 

Along with the pharmacy, the family opened the Bull Dog Inn in the space, named for the family’s UGA ties, along with the mascot for Forsyth County High School, now Forsyth Central.

“The menu had some good prices in 1970,” Jim said. “We had a full restaurant there and soda fountain, did meals, ice cream and things like that.”

A menu from those days show prices of barbecue pork and two eggs $2, a chicken breast plate for $1.50 and a hamburger for $.45 or $.50 with toppings.

The counter of the former eatery is still in the back of the store and used by employees for meals.

In the ’70s the store was also one of the first pharmacies in Georgia to start keeping their records via computer. 

“It took up almost the whole wall with computers to do [what a tablet will do],” Jim said. “That’ll do probably 100 times what the [first computer] would do.”

Lee said working in the same space so long means there are a lot of memories in the building.

“It’s cool to me, seeing the pictures from 40 years ago of them working, then you’re like, ‘Wow, the counters are the same, all the fixtures are the same’ but they would have a typewriter and old computer instead of the new stuff. It’s pretty cool.”

With such a history in the area, the Goodsons aren’t the only family with generations of memories at the store. 

“We’ve got five generations of some [families] come in,” Jim said. “It’s humbling. As many drug stores that are in this area now, all the people that come in here have to go by several to come in here. It’s humbling to say that we have such loyal customers.”

“[We hear,] ‘My great-grandmother came here and I got medicine for her and remember,’ just things like that.”

For Lee, the store and speaking with longtime customers also helps preserve the memory of his grandfather, who passed when he was young and doesn’t have any memories of. 

“They’ll pull me aside and tell me some of the stories and all that larger-than-life stuff about how Cumming was in the ’50s and ’60s. It’s unbelievable. It was a lot wilder then; it sounds a lot more interesting,” Lee said. “It’s really neat. Like Dad was saying, some of our customers, I’ve known literally my whole life. They’ve seen me grow up in here, and it’s kind of cool. They’re like extended family in a lot of ways.”

Many of the store’s employees have family connections as well. 

Jim said he worked alongside pharmacist Rance Caine for more than three decades until Caine’s recent retirement. Caine’s daughter, Jennifer, still works at Goodson.

“We went to grammar school over in Cumming. He just retired a couple of months ago,” Jim said. “He’d been with us probably about 35 years.”

Working the front of the store is Willie Mae Keys, who has worked the front of the store since 2008, when she took over after her mother, Pluma Pruitt, passed away. 

“She worked here for 40-something years,” Keys said. “Jimmy and them are just like my brothers. My mom just nearly raised them. Jimmy and I went to school together.”

Similarly, one customer at the store said she had been coming to Goodson her entire life. 

“They’re so dedicated and so nice and you always get what you need in a timely manner,” she said.

Officials with Goodson said they are planning some specials for their customers on non-drug items to celebrate their six decades of support, though what offers haven’t been finalized yet. 

“It will be something kind of different for us trying to say thank you to our customers and their patronage over 60 years,” said pharmacist Megan Scott.