If I told you to look in your closet for a pair of pants right now, I can almost guarantee what comes to mind first is that traditional blue jean. Everyone likes blue jeans, right? They’re as American as apple pie.
Did you know the world actually has our very own Reno, Nevada 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 of 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 sights 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 Francisco-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 railroad 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 Francisco, 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 Francisco 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.
This story comes to you from this year’s Nevada Day Magazine; be sure to grab a hard copy along the parade route!
