Schwabacher Brothers

The Schwabacher Brothers—Louis Schwabacher (1837 – June 3, 1900), Abraham (Abe) Schwabacher (c. 1838 – September 7, 1909), and Sigmund (Sig) Schwabacher (May 14, 1841 – March 20, 1917)—were pioneering Bavarian-born Jewish merchants, important in the economic development of the Washington Territory and later Washington State. They owned several businesses bearing their family name, first in San Francisco, then in Walla Walla, Washington, and later in Seattle. Notable among these businesses were Schwabacher Bros. of San Francisco (investment brokers); Schwabacher Bros. & Company (later Pacific Marine Schwabacher), the Schwabacher Realty Company, the Gatzert-Schwabacher Land Company, and the Schwabacher Hardware Company, all ultimately based in Seattle; and the Stockton Milling Company.

The three Schwabacher brothers, natives of Zirndorf, Bavaria, came to the United States in the mid-19th century. The first to cross over was Louis Schwabacher, who came over with the help of his mother’s brother, Isaac Bloch of San Francisco. Louis engaged in business several places in the Southern United States and settled for a time in Mississippi. In 1858 he relocated to San Francisco. Around that time, his brothers joined him.

When the main focus of the brothers' business shifted to the Pacific Northwest, Abraham Schwabacher stayed behind at the brothers' San Francisco headquarters. He married his first cousin, Sara Lehrberger Schwabacher.

One Schwabacher enterprise in California was the Stockton Milling Company (), of which Sigmund Schwabacher was president.

After ventures in San Francisco and in The Dalles, Oregon (where Sigmund worked for a relative with the surname Black, probably originally Bloch), the brothers set up a business in Walla Walla, Washington, in 1860. At that time, Walla Walla was a base for the Orofino Creek gold rush in Idaho, and was accessible only about half the year, when the untamed Columbia River was calm enough for travel; a decade later it was still a chaotic frontier town.

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