George Cohen family silver collection

Described as being "imaginative and with a feel for adventure," George Soloman Cohen was known for his generosity to the city of Houston and Rice University. He and his father bought Foley Bros. Department store from the Foley brothers in 1917 and developed it into one of the state's leading retailers. He served in various capacities for the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Symphony Society, Houston Community Chest, Young Men's Business League of Houston, and was instrumental in developing the first airline connections for the city as well as bringing the first passenger liner to Houston from Europe in 1925. He also served on the city's Generasl Arrangements Committee for the Democratic National Convention held in Houston in 1928. Cohen was born in Galveston in 1885 and started at age 10 working at his father's store while either shipping out during summers on steamers sailing between Galveston and New York or on fishing boats off the west coast of the Yucatan Penisula of Mexico. He attended Ball High School in Galveston and Peeksill Military Academy in New York, but left to attend classes on advertising, window dressing, bookkeeping and accounting while working for many department stores before returning to Galveston in 1904. He married the former Esther Regina Meyer of Galvestion in 1921, and together made unrestricted gifts to Rice directed toward loans and scholarships, for an elevator for the football stadium. His largest gift was the faculty club building in 1927, with a maintenance and remodeling fund and addition of a new wing in 1959. Cohen died in 1971.