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Private company

Mammoth Mart

Logo: RilennEdits, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons3

American discount department store chain

Mammoth Mart was a discount department store chain, located in the northeastern United States, primarily in the New England area. The chain was founded by Max Coffman and Henry Gornstein in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1956, and was something of a prototype for the large, downscale department store, selling housewares, hardware and clothing in stark, unfussy buildings, usually in suburban shopping center locations. Other discount department store retailers like K-Mart, Zayre, and Bradlees would subsequently expand on this concept.2 It ceased to exist in 1978.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1956Founded1
  • Industryretail1
  • HeadquartersFramingham1

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Mammoth Mart was a discount department store chain, located in the northeastern United States, primarily in the New England area. The chain was founded by Max Coffman and Henry Gornstein in Framingham, Massachusetts in 1956, and was something of a prototype for the large, downscale department store, selling housewares, hardware and clothing in stark, unfussy buildings, usually in suburban shopping center locations. Other discount department store retailers like K-Mart, Zayre, and Bradlees would subsequently expand on this concept.2

The story

In 1956, Max Coffman and Henry Gornstein opened the first Mammoth Mart (at the time known as Mammoth Mills) in Framingham, MA. It was originally called Mammoth Mills due to the first store being in a mill building that used the same name. The name was changed to Mammoth Mart in 1962.

By 1969, the chain had 35 stores. In March 1970, Mammoth Mart diversified their holdings by acquiring the eight-unit Boston Baby chain of juvenile merchandise stores, eventually expanding the division to fifteen stores. This venture was a failure, and the chain liquidated in 1973. In September 1970, Mammoth Mart acquired two locations from Key Stores. The cost of liquidating Boston Baby, combined with the economic effects of the 1973 oil crisis, rising inflation, increased shrinkage and Phase IV of the Nixon Administration's program of Wage and Price Controls, forced the company to file for bankruptcy protection under Chapter XI of the Bankruptcy Act of 1898—one of the precursors (along with Chapter X of the 1898 Bankruptcy Act) of today's Chapter 11— on June 17, 1974. The chain was acquired by now-defunct King's Department Stores for $43 million (~$173 million in 2024) on June 15, 1977. The final locations were rebranded to King’s by Spring 1979.

From Wikipedia’s article on Mammoth Mart, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Timeline

  1. 1978Dissolved Dissolved1
  2. 1956Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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