'' today, is the store that I. W. Hellman bought from Adolph Portugal in 1865 at age 22. At right is the
S. Lazard & Co. foreign and domestic dry goods store, wholesale and retail, at 53. Hellman and his brother Herman left Hamburg on the steamer
Hammonia, arriving in
Los Angeles,
California, on May 14, 1859, to join their cousins. Their brother James later emigrated to Los Angeles as well. The store operated as Hellman and Bro. and sold cigars and stationery, and was located at the corner of Main and Temple streets. Isaias joined the business in 1855, brother Sam in 1857, and the partnership was dissolved January 26, 1862. In 1865, Hellman bought the dry goods store of Adolph Portugal at the corner of Main and Commercial that Portugal had opened in 1854. This is approximately the current location of the
Triforium sculpture on the
Los Angeles Mall. Some sources state that he opened a dry goods store in April 1865 "on the
Baker Block". The Baker Block did not open until 1875, however is
one short city block north of Hellman's store at the southeast corner of Main and Commercial streets. In 1870, Hellman erected the
Hellman Block at the northwest corner of Los Angeles Street and (a street that no longer exists) Commercial Street.
Banking Hellman became Los Angeles' first banker almost by accident. As a courtesy, he stored his customers' gold and valuables in a
safe. One day, Hellman got into an altercation with a drunk customer who had been coming in and out of the store, withdrawing gold each time from a
pouch stored in the safe. When the man sobered up, he was angry to discover he had spent most of his funds, and lunged at Hellman. That interaction prompted Hellman to stop his informal banking operations. He obtained printed slips reading I.W. Hellman, Banker, and started buying people's funds and issuing deposit books. On September 1, 1868, Hellman and
Temple founded Hellman, Temple and Co., the fledgling city's second official bank. In 1871, Hellman and
John G. Downey, a former governor of California, formed the
Farmers and Merchants Bank of Los Angeles, which became Los Angeles' first successful bank. Hellman lent the money that allowed
Harrison Gray Otis to buy the
Los Angeles Times and
Edward Doheny and
Charles A. Canfield to drill for oil. In 1881, Hellman was appointed a
Regents of the University of California to fill the unexpired term of
D.O. Mills. He was reappointed twice and served until 1918. In 1905, he sold his home on Main St. to the bank and developed the Farmers & Merchants Bank Building and the
Isaias W. Hellman Office Building on the site. In 1890, Hellman moved to
San Francisco to take over the Nevada Bank of San Francisco, which had been formed in 1875 by four men known as the Silver Kings:
John William Mackay,
James Cair Flood, William O'Brien and
James Graham Fair. While the bank had once had $10 million in capitalization, it was nearly broke by the time Hellman took over. When word got out about Hellman's involvement, capitalists from around the world applied to buy stock. Hellman had $15 million in applications but only $2.5 million in stock to sell. Two of the biggest shareholders included
Mayer Lehman of
Lehman Brothers ($150,000) and
Levi Strauss ($120,000). Other shareholders included men Hellman had grown up with in Reckendorf who had become important businessmen, including Kalman,
Abraham and William Haas, and David Walter. Hellman served as president of the Nevada Bank of San Francisco from 1890 to 1898 when he nationalized the bank under the title of The Nevada National Bank of San Francisco. Hellman was president of that bank from 1898 to 1905, until he bought the banking division of
Wells Fargo & Co., and merged it with the Nevada National Bank to form the
Wells Fargo Nevada National Bank with a working capital of $9,500,000. After the
1906 San Francisco earthquake, the bank was operated in the residence of Hellman's son-in-law at 2020 Jackson Street while the headquarters was rebuilt. At the height of his power, Hellman reportedly served as president or director of seventeen banks along the Pacific Coast and controlled $100 million in capital. Hellman served as president of the Wells Fargo Nevada National Bank until his death in 1920 when he was succeeded by his son, who sadly died a month later, on May 10, 1920. In 1954, Wells Fargo & Union Trust shortened its name to
Wells Fargo Bank.
Streetcars and utilities In 1870, Hellman's cousin Isaiah M. Hellman was elected city treasurer while Isaias became a major investor in trolley lines, contributing funds in 1874 to start the Main Street and Agricultural Park Railway, which traveled from the Plaza, the heart of Los Angeles's downtown, to Agricultural Park, a horse-racing track. Hellman eventually invested in many of the city's rail lines and with
Henry Huntington formed the
Los Angeles Railway in 1898 and the
Pacific Electric Railway in 1901. He was a major investor in Los Angeles's water, gas and electricity companies, and helped bring
Southern Pacific Railroad to Los Angeles in 1876, which ended the isolation of the region.
Real estate Hellman was a major landowner in Southern California. His holdings included numerous city lots and vast swaths of former rancho land. In 1871, he and a syndicate bought the
Rancho Cucamonga. In 1881, Hellman and members of the
Bixby family purchased the
Rancho Los Alamitos (now home to
Long Beach and
Seal Beach). The
Hellman neighborhood of Long Beach bears his name. He also purchased the
Repetto Ranch (now Montebello) with
Harris Newmark and Kaspare Cohn. Hellman and Downey also purchased swaths of
Rancho San Pedro from the Dominguez family. Hellman owned much of
Boyle Heights with
William H. Workman. . In 1897, Hellman bought a large parcel of land next to
Lake Tahoe where he built a mansion in 1903. He named it Pine Lodge after the sugar pines on the property. His family later sold this land to the state of California, which made the property into
Sugar Pine Point State Park. He purchased the Nacimiento Ranch near
Paso Robles and stocked it with cattle and horses.
University of Southern California In 1879, Judge
Robert Maclay Widney established a
board of trustees to create a new
university. Hellman joined the businessman
Ozro W. Childs and the former
Governor of California John G. Downey in donating valuable land and an
endowment to found the
University of Southern California. ==Personal life==