Levi Strauss turns 197 years old today, so I wanted to share a couple of my favorite stories to celebrate his big day.

In the early 1880s a man named Antonio Gagliardo owned a store in Douglas Flat, in California’s gold country, which carried Levi Strauss & Co. dry goods and clothing. It was sometimes called The Italian Store. Gagliardo’s business didn’t make it, he went bankrupt in 1885, and then he hightailed it to Los Angeles. He knew that Levi Strauss was a wealthy and generous man, so Gagliardo wrote a letter asking Levi to help him get a job as a clerk. Levi was sorry for his old customer, so he sent him $50, which is about $1,800 today.

The old customer was not happy.

Gagliardo wrote another letter and said that if Levi didn’t find him a job within ten days, he would come to San Francisco and blow Levi’s head off.

The Italian Store in Douglas Flat, California.

Levi had Italian American friends, some of whom knew Gagliardo, and they begged him to tell the police about the letter. But Levi said the man was simply “overexcited by his troubles.” Then in March he heard that Gagliardo was in San Francisco, so he decided to talk to the chief of police.

The cops arrested Gagliardo on March 11 and threw him in jail, setting bail at $5,000 (equivalent to a whopping $183,000 in 2026). But the case was thrown out of the police court in early April. Levi refused to prosecute Gagliaro because he promised “…to refrain from carrying his sanguinary promises into execution.” Levi believed the man would not shoot him, and his belief was justified. Gagliardo left town and never came back to San Francisco.

Courtesy The Museum of the City of San Francisco

San Francisco’s history has been marked by destructive fires, from 1849 through the firestorm of 1906, and after the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. Levi Strauss had his own experience with fire and the threats to his business, and he responded in his usual way: with generosity.

An arson fire destroyed a company storage shed and its contents on March 21, 1875. Three months later another fire broke out at an LS&Co. property, possibly the headquarters on Battery Street (the records are murky). Wherever it was, Levi was deeply grateful to the fire department for putting both blazes out quickly. He threw a banquet for the department on July 5 to thank the firemen.

Levi also arranged for the company to donate money to fire disaster relief beyond San Francisco: the great Chicago fire of 1871; a fire in Portland, Oregon in 1873; and a destructive blaze in Virginia City, Nevada in 1875.

When fireman John E. Sweeny lost his life rescuing a man from a burning building in June of 1900, the entire city got together to raise money for his widow and children. Levi Strauss personally gave $50 to the fund, equivalent to about $1,400. He may have also attended one of the benefits organized by local merchants.

Dennis T. Sullivan, Chief of the San Francisco Fire Department. Courtesy The Museum of the City of San Francisco.

Given the increasing threat of fire in California today, I’m awed by Levi’s foresight about fire safety. In 1875, he and other merchants tried to get San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors to limit the construction of wood frame buildings in the city’s downtown. The supervisors didn’t listen, more were built, and these structures provided the fuel for the three days of fires that followed the 1906 earthquake.

Levi died on September 26, 1902. His will included a bequest to the Firemen’s Mutual Aid Society, an organization that gave financial assistance to injured firefighters and the families of those who lost their lives on the job. On October 4, 1902, Levi’s nephew Sigmund Stern handed a check for $500 to Fire Chief Dennis Sullivan, who said the bequest “…came in the nature of a pleasant surprise” to the department. That’s $20,000 today.

So Happy Birthday to Uncle Levi. Here’s my favorite image of the man: an 1897 ad for the company’s riveted clothing, featuring the founder himself, who insisted that employees call him “Levi,” and who obviously had a sense of humor.