Lick arrived in
San Francisco, California, in January 1848, Upon his arrival, Lick began buying
real estate in the small village of San Francisco. The discovery of gold at
Sutter's Mill near
Sacramento a few days after Lick's arrival in the future state began the
California Gold Rush and created a housing boom in San Francisco, which grew from about one thousand residents in 1848 to over twenty thousand by 1850. Lick got a touch of "gold fever" and sought to mine the metal, but after a week decided his fortune was to be made by owning land, not digging in it. Lick continued buying land in San Francisco, and also began buying farmland in and around
San Jose, where he planted
orchards and built the largest
flour mill in the state. He invited his son to join him there in 1854; however, the younger Lick suffered from poor health and returned to Pennsylvania in 1863. In 1861, Lick began construction of a
hotel, known as
Lick House, 41 Montgomery Street (Lick Street, 111 Sutter Street), at the intersection with Sutter Street, in San Francisco. The hotel had a dining room that could seat 400, based on a similar room at the
palace of Versailles. Lick House was considered the finest hotel west of the
Mississippi River. The hotel was destroyed in the fire following the
San Francisco earthquake of 1906. The
Hunter-Dulin Building was constructed 1925–1927. Following the construction, Lick returned to his San Jose orchards. In 1874, Lick suffered a massive
stroke in the kitchen of his home in
Santa Clara. The following morning, he was found by his employee, Thomas Fraser, and taken to Lick House, where he could be better cared for. At the time of his illness, his estates, outside his considerable area in
Santa Clara County and San Francisco, included large holdings around
Lake Tahoe, a large
ranch in
Los Angeles County, and all of
Santa Catalina Island, making Lick the richest man in California. In the next three years, Lick spent his time determining how to dispense his fortune. He originally wanted to build giant statues of himself and his parents, and erect a
pyramid larger than the
Great Pyramid of Giza in his own honor in downtown San Francisco. Through the efforts of George Davidson, president of the
California Academy of Sciences, Lick was persuaded to leave the greatest portion of his fortune to the establishment of a mountaintop
observatory, with the largest, most powerful
telescope yet built. The principal divisions of the funds were: • $700,000 to the
University of California for the construction of an observatory and the installation of a telescope more powerful than any other • $150,000 for the building and maintenance of free public
James Lick Baths in San Francisco • $540,000 to found and endow an institution of San Francisco to be known as the
California School of Mechanic Arts • $100,000 for the erection of three appropriate groups of bronze statuary to represent three periods in Californian history and to be placed before the city hall of San Francisco • $60,000 to erect in
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, a memorial to
Francis Scott Key, author of “
The Star-Spangled Banner” Lick had had an interest in astronomy since at least 1860, when he and
George Madeira, the founder of the first observatory in California, spent several nights observing. They had also met again in 1873 and Lick said that Madeira's telescopes were the only ones he had ever used. In 1875, Thomas Fraser recommended a site at the
summit of
Mount Hamilton, near San Jose. Lick approved, on the condition that Santa Clara County build a "first-class" road to the site. The county agreed and the road was completed by the fall of 1876. On October 1, 1876, Lick died in his room in Lick House, San Francisco. In 1887, his body was moved to its final resting place, under the future home of the
Great Lick Refracting Telescope. ==Legacy==