William Leidesdorff- Founder of San Francisco and Wealthy Visionary

Born October 23, 1810, he was one of the first known black citizens of California and founder of the city now known as San Francisco. He was born in St. Croix which at the time was part of the Danish Virgin Islands. He was the son of an African woman and a Danish planter. The kind of relationship which was typical during this time. When he moved to California, he first settled in Yerba Buena, a city mostly inhabited by Mexican citizens at the time. Soon after he was able to secure a land grant from Mexico which was located near the corner of Clay and Kearney streets.

Leidesdorff opened his first business, a profitable export-import trade route between San Francisco and Honolulu selling hides and tallow. Soon after he was able to start other businesses, including a warehouse on what was then the waterfront at California and Leidesdorff Streets, a general store, lumber yard and ship building business. As a result, he launched the first steamboat on the San Francisco Bay. He also built the first and largest hotel, City Hotel at Clay and Kearny Streets, and a residence at Montgomery and California Streets where he spent the remainder of his life. The hotel was later destroyed in a fire. During this time, he served as U.S. Vice Consul at San Francisco during Mexican rule and as San Francisco city treasurer, councilman, and as a member of the school committee. He was also the city’s first treasurer and established the city’s first public school.

William Leidesdorff quickly became one of the nation’s most prominent Black citizen and businessman until his untimely death at the age of thirty-eight on May 18, 1848. He is buried at Mission Dolores. He had no living relatives in the United States at the time of his death. It is estimated that Leidesdorff’s estate was worth well over one million dollars and multiple of millions of dollars in gold was mined off his land. When the Leidesdorff-Folsom partitioned estate was auctioned off in 1856, the property brought more than $1,445,000. His only living relatives in the Virgin Islands were denied any claims to the land which at the time had become very valuable to the state of California.

Today, only a small alley pays tribute to the man who founded this city.