Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California

Schools should use book for the classroom on California history!

In this meticulously researched book, Frances Dinkelspiel tells the all-but-forgotten story of Isaias Hellman, a man who was as well-known in his era as Warren Buffet is in our's. Hellman was one of the leading financiers of early California, a banking pioneer who laid the foundations for what is now one of the world's biggest economies. Dinkelspiel patched together his story by going through tens of thousands of pages of his personal papers, yet her deft story telling weaves his personal history seamlessly into the dramatic events of his times.

To read Towers of Gold is to step back into a fascinating and unpredictable period in California's history. Thoroughly researched and meticulously told, the story of Isaias Hellman is more than an archetypal rags-to-riches American tale--it's a story of how a Jewish immigrant, unhampered by Old World prejudices, helped shape the state. Anyone interested in the history of our country's ailing financial system will find interesting parallels.

I was hooked from the introduction when the writer describes discovering boxes of her great-great grandfather's letters and papers and realizing she had a story to tell. From that great beginning, this book continued to hold me in its vivid, dramatic rendering of California history and of this man, a true tycoon. Until this book, I had not heard of Hellman , but now I see his influence regularly in my life in California, starting with Wells Fargo banks. Hellman not only started this bank, but the author tells an amazing--and chillingly timely--account of how Hellman stopped an 1893 bank panic singlehandedly. If you're interested in California history (imagine a time when the streets of LA were dirt, as were the floors in many homes), immigrant history, Jewish history, and a juicy story of wheeling-dealing tycoons, you couldn't find a better scribe than this writer and her elegant, exciting, and well-told history.

"Towers of Gold" by former San Jose Mercury News staffwriter Frances Dinkelspiel, is a kind of west coast "Our Crowd" -- but better. It's an engaging narrative about one man's American dream that in this case contributed to the growth of California and the rise of some of its most influential Jewish families. Dinkelspiel's lucid writing and rich reporting of Isaias Hellman's journey takes you from 17th Century Bavarian pogroms to the founding of one of the nation's leading banks, reacquainting you with that sadly bygone era when financiers built something other than their own fortunes.

Frances Dinkelspiel has written a fascinating account of the life of Isaias Hellman, her great-great grandfather and a man whose banking skills seemingly transformed California. The Hellman name is well-known in the Bay Area - Warren Hellman, a billionaire merchant banker - puts on the free, three-day Hardly Strictly Bluegrass concert every year in Golden Gate Park - but I didn't know anything about this Hellman. Isaias Hellman came to Los Angeles from Germany in 1859 and started the region's first successful bank, the Farmers and Merchants Bank. Los Angeles was just a small settlement back then. The streets were unpaved, the only way to get there from San Francisco was by steamer, and a murder a day was common. By starting a bank, Hellman brought much-needed credit to the region and helped start its transformation into one of American's biggest cities. He goes on to do many important things, like donating the land to start the University of California, lending funds to Harrison Gray Otis to gain complete control of the Los Angeles Times, and spinning deals with the railroad tycoons Collis Huntington, Henry Huntington, and Edward Harriman. In fact, his friends read like a "Who's Who" of the 19th century and include Levi Strauss, Mayer Lehman, and Jacob Schiff. In 1905, Hellman took over the Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco. That was just one of the banks he controlled. According to Dinkelspiel, he headed up or served on the board of dozens of other institutions, including the Nevada Bank, and controlled more than $100 million in capital. This guy clearly had a brain for business. Dinkelspiel does a wonderful job of bringing history to life. There are lots of great scenes in Towers of Gold. There are earthquakes, fires, droughts, assassination attempts, betrayals and love affairs. It has all the elements of a great modern movie. The title refers to a time when Hellman single-handedly stopped a bank run in Los Angeles in 1893 by piling his own money into towers of gold on the counters of one of his banks. The sight of all that glistening gold calmed panicking depositors, who then return their money to the vault. If only we had someone like Hellman around today.