Isaias W. Hellman

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Isaias William Hellman (October 3, 1842 - April 9, 1920) was a German-Jewish banker and philanthropist, and a founding father of the University of Southern California.

Born in Reckendorf, Bavaria, Hellman and his brother Herman W. arrived in the Los Angeles in 1859 to join their cousins. Seeing the business opportunities in the still small town of Los Angeles, they started work as dry goods merchants.

On September 1, 1868, Hellman founded Hellman, Temple and Co., the fledgling city’s second (but first successful) bank. In 1871, it became Farmers and Merchants Bank, and Hellman lent the money that allowed Harrison Gray Otis to buy the Los Angeles Times and Henry Huntington to build the Pacific Electric line. He also raised the funds and served as the president of a major synagogue. In 1876, his cousin Isaiah M. Hellman was elected City Treasurer.

He married Esther Newgass, of New York on April 14, 1870. The couple had three children, including son Isaias William Hellman, Jr.

In 1879, Hellman joined some public-spirited citizens led by Judge Robert Maclay Widney, in what would be his most significant legacy: the University of Southern California, the first university in the region. When Widney formed a board of trustees, he secured a donation of 308 lots of land from three prominent members of the community: Ozro W. Childs, a Protestant Horticulture; former California governor John G. Downey, an Irish-Catholic pharmacist and businessman; and Hellman. The gift provided land for a campus as well as a source of endowment, the seeds of financial support for the nascent institution. A street on the USC campus is named after him.

In 1881, Hellman was appointed the first Jewish Regent of the University of California to fill the unexpired term of Regent D. O. Mills. He was reappointed twice and served until 1918.

In 1890, he moved to San Francisco and incorporated the first trust company in California, Union Trust Company. He was president of the Nevada Bank from 1890 to 1898 and the Nevada National Bank from 1898 to 1905 and finally Wells Fargo Bank when his bank merged with it in 1905 (known then as Wells Fargo/Nevada National Bank). After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the bank was run out of Hellman's home while the destroyed headquarters was rebuilt.

In 1897, Hellman bought a large parcel of land next to Lake Tahoe where he built a mansion in 1903. His family later donated this property to the state of California, which made the property into the Sugar Pine Point State Park.

At his death in 1920, Hellman was considered the leading financier of the Pacific Coast. His son (I.W. Jr.) and grandson (Isaias Warren Hellman) later became presidents of Wells Fargo Bank; and the Union Trust Company was merged with Wells Fargo after his death. His original Farmers and Merchants Bank would later merge with Security First National Bank and ultimately be acquired by Bank of America.

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