Excerpt from The Builders of a Great City, Vol. 1 of 2: San Francisco’s Representative Men, the City, Its History and Commerce; Pregnant Facts Regarding the Growth of the Leading Branches of Trade, Industries and Products of the State and Coast
The builders OF A great city is, as its name implies, a series of Sketches of some of the most prominent of those men who have done so much in the founding of San Francisco, and making it one of the great cities of the world, and not only the commercial, industrial and financial metropolis of the Pacific Coast, but of the whole West, as New York is of the East. Amongst the names presented in these pages will be found those of merchants, manufacturers, bankers, railroad magnates, and others, whose life work has been instrumental in making this city what it is to day. Every statement in these Sketches has been verified by the gentleman to whom it refers. The biographical contents of this volume thus form a body of personal history of leading men, the authenticity of which may never. Be questioned. In this lies their principal merit, as there is no pre tension made to graces of style or ornamental or majestic diction, plain business statements, couched as nearly as may be in the ordinary every day language of commercial life, being all that is aimed at. The biographies are, for easy reference, arranged in alphabetical order. As it became evi dent soon after undertaking the work that justice to the subject could not be done in one volume, it was determined to make this the first of a series bearing the same name and title.
In the introduction of one hundred pages will be found, in a condensed form, all’ that there is of interest regarding the matters therein treated of. These embrace a brief history of the city and State, with a description of the more striking features of both, the more important productions of the latter, its leading resources, a condensed history of gold and silver mining on the coast, the population of the city and its peculiarities, its principal institutions, and data revised to the present year regarding the commerce, manufactures, banking and finance of the city, and the leading staples of the State. All not found here will be published in Volume II. We aim to give in a small space, and for all time, information regarding the early history of the State and city that Shall be invaluable to the historian of the future.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
