Friday Evening Downtown

Here's a view of downtown from in front of City Hall on a Friday evening. Click on the picture for a larger view, and you can see the Rexall sign on the right and the sunlit Pettus Bridge in the background.

Vintage Rexall

Here's a closeup of the vintage Rexall sign seen in the background of previous downtown photographs.

These signs have become rather rare - a relic of the World War II and Baby Boomer generations and generally found in small towns. I did a little research and discovered that the company traces its history back to 1902 when Louis Ligget called 40 drugstore owners together to form a cooperative. United Drug Stores sold products with the Rexall name, and after World War I, the company became a national franchise. Rexall advertised on radio shows such as "Amos 'n Andy" and manufactured pharmaceutical supplies...vitamins, herbal remedies, even combs and brushes. The chain was sold in 1977, and in the 1980s, Sundown acquired the Rexall trademark and today operates as Rexall Sundown.

Apparently, there are more Rexall signs in Canada than the U.S.
Does anybody know how Rexall got its name?