Last updated: March 2, 2021
Place
Citizen Sutro
Born on April 29th, 1820 in Germany, Adolph Heinrich Joseph Sutro grew up to embody the American immigrant dream. He arrived in California in 1850, during the Gold Rush, and was well educated in the field of mining engineering and business. Somewhat surprisingly, Sutro made his fortune not in gold but in silver during the late 1860s and 1870s at the Comstock Lode in Nevada.
His fortune came from devising and implementing a ventilation system that rid the Comstock Lode mine shafts of water and gas by driving a tunnel through Mount Davidson. Sutro included the miners in his plans for the tunnel and worked alongside them in dangerous conditions to see the work finished. Once operational, the tunnel drained two million gallons of water a year from the mines. The tunnel was a great success. Despite the decreasing value of the lode over the 1870s, Sutro was able to sell his tunnel for a great fortune, which later became a fortune for the people of San Francisco.