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Bank of California WC Ralston Documents incl. Autograph [155332]

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Paper Start Price:200.00 USD Estimated At:400.00 - 800.00 USD
Bank of California WC Ralston Documents incl. Autograph [155332]
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Lot of 2. 1) Certificate of Special Deposit, Bank of California, San Francisco Sep. 28, 1874. A. Austin has deposited $50,000 in US Gold Coin (over a million dollars today). Signed by WC Ralston. 4.25 x 7.25" Alexander Austin was the city tax collector. 2) Small Bank of California letterhead, 1871, to LH Hershfield & Bro. about deposits. Signed for Ralston as cashier by Dunn.

William Chapman Ralston was the founder of the Bank of California. With agent William Sharon, the two took control of the Comstock Lode mines in the 1860s. They created a branch of the Bank of California in Virginia City in 1864 with Sharon as agent. By offering low interest loans to mines and mills with the properties as collateral, they were able to create a monopoly. Since this was a period of declining mining activity, most couldn't repay their loans and the Bank took over the mines and mills. By 1867, they owned seven mills, which they organized as the Union Mill and Mining Co. By 1869, they had seventeen mills. Their dominion over the Comstock was ended by the Bonanza Firm (Mackay, Fair, Flood, O'Brien) and their rival bank, the Nevada Bank of San Francisco. Ralston, along with D.O.. Mills, also founded the Virginia & Truckee Railroad. Ralston also built the luxurious Palace Hotel in San Francisco, site of the Sharon Comstock Lode reunion dinner that had silver ingot invitations that our company has sold in the past. The cost of construction, paired with some other investments, and the financial Panic of 1873, caused the collapse of the Bank of California and Ralston's ruin. In 1875, he went swimming in San Francisco Bay and was found dead, possibly from a stroke.

Date: 1871-74
Country (if not USA):
State: California
City: San Francisco
Provenance: