Founders Jessel and Sydney Cohn | Founded 1929 | |
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Acme Boots was founded in 1929, during the Great Depression. Two Chicago shoe manufacturers, Jessel Cohn and his son, Sidney, decided to move their children’s and infants' shoemaking plant from Chicago, Illinois to Clarksville, Tennessee.
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They set up their business in a two-story brick building on Crossland Avenue and called it the Acme Shoe Manufacturing Company. They hired 100 employees and began producing sandal-like footwear for children and infants under the name Just-Kids. The shoes sold for 40 to 50 cents a pair. The Cohns continued their children’s business until 1935, when the senior Cohn returned home from a business trip to Texas. While there, Cohn saw a pair of western boots that cost $65.00, well beyond the reach of the average shoe buyer at the time.
Cohn took a pair of boots back to Clarksville to see how they were made. He studied the boots carefully, noting every detail of their construction. After his inspection, he and his son decided they could produce the same boots on an assembly line, allowing them to sell the boots for a better price.
A short time later, the Cohns dropped their children’s footwear line in favor of the boots and renamed the company Acme Boots. In the 1940s, Acme Boots became the largest maker of cowboy boots and remained the world's largest until the mid-1980s.
Acme Boots has since been held by various corporations, including Arena Brands of Dallas, Texas, which licensed the Acme Brand to the Texas Boot Company of Lebanon, Tennessee in 2000.
In 2002, Texas Boot put the Acme Boot brand up for sale, where it was purchased by H.H. Brown, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, and placed under the Double-H Boots brand label, where it remains today. Acme was purchased to create a price point product story to complement the Double-H brand of western boots and footwear.