Rutherford Drugstore, the oldest business in Mt. Vernon, opened in 1869 by John Griffith Lock Rutherford, a Texas-born great-grandson of an American Revolution general for whom a Tennessee county was named. He began by handling a small line of drugs in the Ruth Pattillo & Co. Mercantile store and moved into his own store at the present site in 1877. He served as postmaster of the town, then called Lone Star and later renamed Mt. Vernon, from 1874 to 1882, and the post office appears to have been housed in the store. After 1914, his son Griffith Wright Rutherford continued the business, and in its second century an heir still retained an interest in the store.