Mohn, Max

MOHN

Posted By: Joyce Hickman (email)
Date: 1/7/2009 at 13:35:54

Max Mohn

(From the 1883 History of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, by J. H. Keatley, p.38, Council Bluffs)
Max Mohn, proprietor of the Creston House, Council Bluffs, was born in Wurtemberg, Germany, December 6, 1843, where he was educated, and where he lived till he came to America. He came to Council Bluffs June 9, 1869, and worked for Max Kreidler, boot and shoe maker, for two and a half years; he then engaged for one year as clerk for Charles Beckman, in the leather business; then worked for Louis Zurmuelen four and a half years, and, in 1877, went into partnership with his sister, Mrs. Weber, in the hotel businss, on South Main street, in a one-story building, which would accommodate about nineteen boarders. Finding that his business justified it, he erected a fine three-story brick hotel, with stone front, costing $12,000, with twenty-four sleeping apartments, and nine other rooms, having now about fifty regular boarders, and a large transient custom. Mr. Mohn was married, in June, 1879, to Anne Betz, and by this marriage they havge one daughter. In 1881, he bought the building occupied by Thrall & Kracht, grocers, for $2,500, and, in November, 1881, bought for $7,000 a two-story brick building, containing one large room downstairs occupied as the billard hall and bar, and with four rooms in the upper story.