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San Francisco,CA - 1855 - Page, Bacon & Co. Check :

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Banks, Registers & Vending Start Price:100.00 USD Estimated At:200.00 - 400.00 USD
San Francisco,CA - 1855 - Page, Bacon & Co. Check :
No. 613 issued Feb. 8, 1855 to Page, Bacon & Co. For $3605. Signed by Thomas Selby. The Selby Smelting and Refining Company was started by Thomas Selby, an Englishman who came to the Gold Rush in San Francisco in 1849. He started a business in metal and hardware and in 1856 established Selby Smelting and Lead Works, which was the first smelting operation for metals other than gold and silver on the west coast. His company enlarged their facility to forty furnaces and Selby quickly became the largest metal smelter in America.

The original facility was in San Francisco on the corner of 1st and Howard Streets. Selby died in 1875 and his son continued to run the company. In the last quarter of the 19th Century, Selby had outgrown its San Francisco facility and moved across the bay to a site near the Hercules Dynamite Plant. Two small towns grew up nearby by the names of Tormey and Rodeo.

In 1905, at the height of its success, the American Smelting and Refining Co. (ASARCO) purchased Selby. Since the company was so successful, ASARCO left the Selby name intact on all of their operations. In 1970 ASARCO closed the Selby operation because of tax and environmental problems.

During the life of the company Selby had at least six different subsidiaries. These include the Selby Smelting and Refining Company, and Selby Smelting and Lead, etc. The records for Selby were donated to the California State Library in Sacramento.