Nevada Lore Series: The invention of the famous blue jean and the Reno, Levi connection
If you looked in your closet for pants right now, I can almost guarantee what comes to mind first is that traditional blue jean. Everyone likes blue jeans, right? They’re almost as American as the U.S Flag and apple pie.
Did you know we have Reno to thank for blue jeans?
It all started with a man by the name of Jacob Davis, who was born in 1831 in what is now Latvia, then the Russian city Riga. His given name was Jacob Youphes, but when he immigrated to the U.S. in 1854, he changed his name to Davis.
He worked as a tailor in the East Coast before setting his sites on the west and California In 1856. He then moved to Canada to pan for gold, before coming south again where he sold pork and tobacco in Virginia City.
Finally, in 1868 at the age of 37, he settled in Reno.
At the time, Reno was little more than a railway station with a tiny town attached. Davis helped build the Reno Brewing Company owned by Frederick Hertlein before returning to his earlier work as a tailor.
Davis opened a tail shop on the main street of town and got to work. He made tents, riding blankets; anything people might need out on the road, especially those working for the Central Pacific Railroad.
He bought wholesale fabric that was a mixture of denim and white duck twill from none other than San Fransisco-based Levi Strauss.
The story goes, in 1870 a woman asked Davis to make a hearty pair of pants for her husband who was a woodcutter. He whipped her up a pair of pants using the denim-duck cloth, adding copper rivets to the seams for strength.
Soon, everyone, especially rail road workers, was asking Davis for work pants, and he quickly found himself overwhelmed with the sheer number of orders.
He then sent a message to Strauss with a business proposition.
On May 20, 1873, the new business of Jacob W. Davis and Levi Strauss & Company received patent no. 139121 for copper-riveted pants.
After the patent was granted, Davis sold his Reno property and holdings and moved his family to San Fransisco, where he oversaw his creation at the Levi Strauss factory.
He supervised almost 500 employees for the rest of his life as they made variations of his original design, including overalls and work shirts, which soon became a standard of the fashion industry.
Davis died in San Fransisco in 1908, but his legacy lives on.
In 2006, a plaque was erected in Reno where Davis’s original Reno-based tailor shop was based, and within it, the legendary blue jean.
— The Nevada Lore Series focuses on the legends of Nevada and the surrounding areas that help build our culture, from ancient Washoe stories, to Old West ghostly visions, to modern day urban legends.
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Nevada Lore Series: The Ormsby House
Nevada Lore Series: The Curse of Bodie
Nevada Lore Series: The murder of Julia Bulette, Virginia City’s beloved Madam and Firefighter
Nevada Lore Series: 'Captain' and the bizarre history of the Thunderbird Lodge at Lake Tahoe
Nevada Lore Series: The Birth and Death of the American Flats
Nevada Lore Series: Genoa's Hanging Tree, and Adam Uber's Dying Curse
Nevada Lore Series: The Extortion Bombing of Harvey's Lake Tahoe Resort
Nevada Lore Series: the Making of a State, Part 1
Nevada Lore Series: the Making of a State, Part 2
Nevada Lore Series: the Infamous Hauntings of the Goldfield Hotel
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