Adolph Sutro
| Adolph Sutro | |
|---|---|
 |
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| 24th Mayor of San Francisco | |
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In office January 7, 1895 – January 3, 1897 |
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| Preceded by | Levi Richard Ellert |
| Succeeded by | James D. Phelan |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
April 29, 1830 Aachen, Prussia |
| Died | August 8, 1898 (aged 68) San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Political party | People's |
| Spouse(s) | Clara Kluge Leah Harris |
| Children | 4 daughters 3 sons |
| Profession | Businessman |
| Religion | Judaism |
Adolph Heinrich Joseph Sutro (April 29, 1830 – August 8, 1898) was a German-American engineer, politician and philanthropist who served as the 24th mayor of San Francisco from 1895 until 1897. Born a German Jew, he moved to Virginia City, Nevada and made a fortune at the . He is today perhaps best remembered for the various San Francisco lands and landmarks that still bear his name.
Born to a Jewish family in Aachen, Rhine Province, Prussia (today North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany), Sutro, educated as an engineer, arrived in the United States at age 20. In 1860, he introduced himself to William Ralston of the Bank of California and introduced his plans for de-watering and de-gassing the mine shafts of the by driving a tunnel through Mount Davidson to drain the water. Sutro incorporated the Sutro Tunnel company and raised US$3 million, a considerable fortune through this work in Nevada. He included the miners in his scheme, and planned to sail to Europe to negotiate with the Parisian Bank, but the Franco-Prussian War commenced in the middle of July 1870. Sutro was stymied, but out of the blue came an offer from a London bank led by a banker named McClamont, who offered $750,000 in gold per year for the Comstock.
According to historian Samuel Dickson, "... Sutro set off blasts of dynamite, ... leading the way for tunnel diggers. He fought avalanches, mud slides and poisonous gases. He dug air shafts to relieve the danger; the shafts filled with water, one of them to the depth of nine hundred feet. He fought cave-ins and solid rock. Through the grueling months, day after day and month after month, he marched ahead of his men, stripped to the waist, laboring with them, sweating with them, facing death with them, and in the end, winning through with them to victory."
Adolph Sutro became King of the Comstock because his tunnels drained three to 4 million US gallons (15,000 m3) of water a day, rented by mine owners at an average of $10,000 a day, "all moneys accumulated for his stockholders."
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