Peter Kern (American businessman)

Peter Kern was a Germanborn American businessman and politician active in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is best known as the founder of the confections company that eventually evolved into Kerns Bakery, a brand still marketed in the Knoxville area. The companys former confectionery and ice cream parlor, now called the Mall Building , still dominates the southwest corner of Market Square. Kern served as Knoxvilles mayor from 1890 until 1892.

Kern was born in Zwingenberg in Germany in 1835. He was trained as a shoemaker in his native country, and immigrated to New York in the early 1850s to practice this trade. By 1857, he had moved to Georgia, where he joined the Confederate army at the outbreak of the Civil War. Fighting with the 12th Georgia Infantry, he was wounded in action in Virginia, and sent home to Georgia to recover.

Source: Wikipedia