San Francisco County

Biographies

 

 

 

ISAIAS WILLIAM HELLMAN, SR.

 

 

 

HELLMAN, ISAIAS WILLIAM, SR., Banker, San Francisco and Los Angeles, California was born in Bavaria, Germany, October 1, 1842.  He arrived in the city of Los Angeles in 1859; married Miss Esther Neugass, of New York, on the 4th of April, 1870, and as a result of that marriage there are three children, I. W. Hellman, Jr., Clara Hellman Heller, and Florence Hellman Ehrman.

      The story of the unusually successful career of Mr. Hellman is replete with interesting chapters.  Beginning with no capital whatsoever, and he has won his way step by step to one of the highest positions in the financial world, and today is known throughout America as one of the most substantial financiers of the present day.

      His success was not won without struggles; reared in Bavaria, he received but a meager education in the schools of that country.  At the age of seventeen, he left Germany for America and by the Panama Isthmus route arrived in San Francisco in 1859.  He remained in that city but a short time, locating in Los Angeles in the same year.

      Being of an industrious frame of mind, he did not remain idle long in his new home.  He sought and found employment as a dry goods clerk in a store in the Arcadia Block on Los Angeles street.  In those days that portion of the city was the active business center, and there Mr. Hellman learned his first lesson in business.

      There was little in the young clerk to indicate the later financier and master of the Western banking world, save an untiring energy and determination to succeed, which seemed to dominate him.  His close attention to duty and his quick grasp of business principles where characteristics that distinguished him, yet those who knew him little dreamed that he would some day become a financial genius whose name would be almost as familiar in New York, London, Paris and Berlin as in his home city.

      It took Mr. Hellman just ten years to save the required amount of capital to start the business of which he had dreamed and determined to build.  By this time his name had become known to every business man in Southern California, and when he organized the banking house of Hellman, Temple & Company he was quickly backed in that project by a corps of substantial business men.  He was elected manager and president of the bank at the beginning, and remained in that position until the house was merged into a larger and more influential institution.

      In 1871 he organized the Farmers and Merchants’ Bank of Los Angeles, today known as the oldest and one of the strongest financial institutions in Southern California.  He was appointed cashier and manager of that bank, and for the following twenty years was constantly at its head, directing its countless details and gradually forging ahead as a leader of finance.

      During the years he was the active head of the Farmers and Merchants’ Bank the reserves of that institution were not the legal twenty-five per cent of the deposits, but ranged from fifty to seventy-five per cent.  He regarded his responsibility as a sacred trust, and determined that he would have money on hand when the depositors called for it.  He maintained an unshaken confidence in the public mind, and when he entered upon an enterprise the public at large felt assured that it was a safe undertaking.

      Mr. Hellman’s success in bringing his Los Angeles bank into prominence among the financial houses of the West attracted the attention and respect of financiers of the entire Pacific Coast, and in 1901 he was called to San Francisco to reorganize the Nevada Bank, assuming its management and presidency.  It was later converted, under the national banking laws, as the Nevada National Bank, and the latter institution consolidated with the Wells Fargo & Company Bank in April, 1905, and became known as the Wells Fargo Nevada National Bank.  Mr. Hellman continues as president to this date.

      His record in San Francisco since 1901 has been as brilliant, if not more brilliant, than his financial career in Los Angeles.  His services in that city have been crowned with success.

      While his achievements in the financial world stand alone, he is a man of many accomplishments.  He is a master of four languages and is a student of literature.  He has been one of the regents of the University of California and is revered and respected by thousands of citizens who have prospered as a result of his management in financial affairs.

 

Transcribed by Gloria Lane.

Source: Press Reference Library, Western Edition Notables of the West, Vol. I, Page 44, International News Service, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta.  1913.

© 2007 Gloria Lane.

 

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