Mark Matthias Cohn

Mark Matthias Cohn was the founder and president of mercantile giant M. M. Cohn. M. M. Cohn was a specialty department store and longtime mainstay of Main Street in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas.

Cohn was a Polish immigrant with the surname Kaminski or Kuhn, born in Krakow around 1845, who changed his name to Mark M. Cohn after visiting a Jewish district of New York City. Cohn may have sold eyeglasses and other wares in Cincinnati, Ohio, and elsewhere as a peddler before settling in Arkansas. It is likely that Cohn opened his first store in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, in 1874, though some accounts indicate the first store opened in Little Rock.

M. M. Cohn's first store in Little Rock opened at the corner of Main and Markham streets in the Capital Hotel. By 1883 the author of a local sketch of the city noted that no retailer in the city occupied "a more prominent position with reference to the amount of stock carried, extent of business transacted, convenience and commodiousness of premises occupied, and none superior in the high standard of commercial honor upon which its operations are based, than the establishment founded by Mr. M. M. Cohn ... They have made their house, by uniform courtesy and genial treatment of visitors and customers, a pleasant one with which to have dealings."

The store moved down the street in 1898 to a location between Third and Fourth streets on Main Street. In 1912 Cohn's son Albert Daniel Cohn became store president.

References

• The Book of Arkansas (Little Rock: Arkansas Gazette, 1913), 30.
• Mike Trimble, "30 Years Create Downtown Differences," Arkansas Gazette, May 2, 1982.
• "M. M. Cohn was Arkansas' High-Fashion Store: Polish Immigrant Built Store's Reputation on Quality Merchandise and Personal Service," Arkansas Business, April 29, 2002.