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1897 San Francisco’s First Jewish Mayor Adolph Sutro Cabinet Card Photograph

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:280.00 USD Estimated At:350.00 - 450.00 USD
1897 San Francisco’s First Jewish Mayor Adolph Sutro Cabinet Card Photograph
Western America
San Francisco’s Jewish Mayor Adolph Sutro Cabinet Card
May 20 1897-Stamp Dated, Cabinet Card Photograph, San Francisco’s First Jewish Mayor Adolph Sutro, 24th Mayor of San Francisco & First Jewish Mayor (1894-1896), Photo by “Taber, San Francisco,” Choice Crisp Near Mint.
Adolph Sutro (1830-1898), was the first Jewish Mayor of San Francisco (1894-1898). Best known for the various San Francisco landmarks and areas that still bear his name. This beautiful quality, 4.25” x 6.5” Cabinet Card shows Sutro in chest-up pose, text below image reads, “Taber No. 121 Post Street bet. Kearny Street and Grant Avenue, San Francisco.” Backstamp reads, “We Mirror Nature Taber Photograph CO 121 Post Street, San Francisco, California. Negative Preserved. Duplicate Copies can be had on Application. When Ordering (state the name in full)”. A faint printed red date stamp at reverse bottom reads, “May 20 1897”. A gorgeous quality image and well printed card with nice contrast that is excellent for display.
Adolph Heinrich Joseph Sutro (1830 – 1898) was the 24th Mayor of San Francisco, and First Jewish Mayor, serving in that office from 1894 until 1896. He is today perhaps best remembered for the various San Francisco lands and landmarks that still bear his name. Born in Aachen, Rhine Province, Prussia (today North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany), Sutro was educated as an engineer.

In 1850, at the age of twenty, Sutro came to the United States and introduced himself to William Ralston of the Bank of California, introducing his plans for de-watering and de-gassing the mine shafts of the Comstock Lode by driving a tunnel through Mount Davidson to drain the water. Sutro incorporated the Sutro Tunnel company and raised $3 million, a considerable fortune through this work in Nevada. He included the miners in his scheme, and planned to sail to Europe to negotiate with the Parisian Bank, but the Franco-Prussian War commenced in the middle of July 1870. Sutro was stymied, but out of the blue came an offer from a London bank led by a banker named McClamont, who offered $750,000 in gold per year for the Comstock.

Adolph Sutro became King of the Comstock because his tunnels drained three to 4 million US gallons of water a day, rented by mine owners at an average of $10,000 a day, "all moneys accumulated for his stockholders." Sutro saw that better German pumps were becoming available, that the Comstock was going even deeper than his drainage tunnel and diminishing in metal output, and sold out before conditions worsened further, departing rich for San Francisco.

His wealth was increased by large real estate investments in San Francisco, where he became an entrepreneur and public figure after returning from the Comstock in 1879. These land investments included Mount Sutro, Land's End (the area where Lincoln Park and the Cliff House are today), and Mount Davidson, which was called "Blue Mountain" at the time. Sutro's reputation as a provider of diversions and culture for the average person led the politically weak and radical Populist Party to draft him to run for mayor on their ticket. He won on an anti-big business platform, inveighing against the tight grip that the Southern Pacific Railroad had over local businesses.

Nevertheless, he was quickly considered a failed Mayor, ill suited for political work, and did not provide the popularity boost his party had hoped to achieve by association with him. At the time of his death, in 1898, his fortune was extensive and his legal affairs in disarray. As a result, his heirs fought bitterly over his holdings.