Kohl's History: Founding, Growth & Key Milestones

Maxwell Kohl

Kohl's possesses a pragmatic, Midwestern founding story, rooted in the economic expansion of post-war suburbia and the ambitious vision of a Polish immigrant family heavily focused on the grocery business before ever selling a single piece of clothing. The company's foundational origins trace back to 1927 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Maxwell Kohl, an ambitious Polish immigrant, opened a successful traditional grocery store. He possessed a foundational obsession with high-quality customer service and pristine store conditions. In 1946, he launched Kohl's Food Stores, which became the dominant, supermarket chain in the Milwaukee area. The defining corporate pivot into department stores occurred in 1962. Maxwell Kohl recognized a lucrative demographic shift: the explosion of the American middle class moving into the suburbs. He realized these busy suburban families wanted a convenient store that sold everything from hardware to clothing, without the formal, intimidating atmosphere of traditional downtown department stores (like Gimbels or Marshall Field's). He opened the very first Kohl's Department Store in Brookfield, Wisconsin. The foundational key move was heavily positioning the store exactly between expensive, premium department stores and cheap discount retailers. In 1972, the British American Tobacco Company acquired a controlling interest in the company, eventually spinning off the department store division to a group of investors (led by management) in 1986. This aggressive management team took the company public in 1992, abandoning the legacy grocery business to roll out Maxwell Kohl's successful 'suburban convenience' department store model across the entire United States. Maxwell Kohl was born in 1901.