GOLD FEVER Part Three. Ken Salter
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but few pants to sell. More cloth and I sell lots more cuz’ miners like my pants. Even carpenters want to buy. They say make pockets stronger, so I use rivets; they like.” Strauss paused and sighed. He looked at me with pleading big eyes.
“Why do miners prefer your work pants to what they normally wear?”
“They say they are stronger an’ tougher than cotton or canvas pants. They say regular work pants, even boots, come apart with heavy work at the rivers. They specially like I reinforce pockets and seams with rivets to make my pants. I want to use copper rivets instead of tin ones, but I have no funds for them.”
While Strauss spoke, I examined his work pants carefully. I had to agree that the heavy denim material was stronger and more durable than the cotton, wool and canvas pants I’d seen miners wearing while working river placers. “You said carpenters liked your pants too. What reason did they give?”
“They have me sew extra pockets and straps to hang their tools. They say pants will last longer and not wear out so fast when they have to work on their knees,” Strauss replied eagerly.
I was starting to get the bigger picture. These solidly riveted work pants would appeal to all sorts of workmen in addition to miners — carpenters, artisans, cowboys, etc. If made on a large enough scale and properly marketed, it could be a profitable product especially if it caught on with the thousands of miners who wore out their clothes at least twice a year. “I like your product Mr. Strauss. I have backers who would invest in your work pants to market them to miners and other workers. The normal way we operate is to establish a partnership involving key individuals to make the product as well as promoters to market it and investors providing the capital. In addition to cloth and sewing materials, we’d need a workshop to make the pants and a retail store to sell the pants. Peddling them on a cart is not an efficient way to sell your pants. I see your role as working with the retail shop, maybe to measure clients and promote the durability of the pants as their inventor. I would be the general partner coordinating the manufacturing and marketing of your work pants. We could call them ‘Levis.’ What do you think?”
“You can do all this?” He replied bewildered. I learned later that he and his two brothers, Jacob and Willy, had struggled to make a living first in Bavaria and later in rural New York as peddlers going house to house selling needles, thread, yarn, ribbons, brass buttons and pots and pans to village wives and farm girls.
“Yes and if the product really catches on, we’ll sell the pants in the towns near the mining camps where miners buy their provisions. There are many more miners in the placers than in San Francisco. With my postal concession for French and Chilean miners, we could sell to these miners as well as your fellow countrymen. If you are in agreement, I’ll have my attorney draw the necessary papers ready to sign tomorrow afternoon. You’d have twenty-five percent of the profits and the partnership would have the exclusive right to market your work pants. Is this agreeable?” Ball in his court.
Levi Strauss shook his curly head in disbelief that an hour ago he was pushing his cart and tomorrow he’d be a partner in an enterprise manufacturing and marketing his work pants. As Strauss seemed to be on cloud nine, I offered him my hand to shake in agreement. He grabbed it eagerly and shook it vigorously. “Yes, yes, it’s a dream come true. I was getting desperate.”
“Good. Let’s meet here at 4 P.M. tomorrow to sign the papers. I’m going to take these two pair of pants to show to my associates. I’ll give them back to you tomorrow.”
After Strauss left, Gino came rushing in. “What happened? Tell me. Are we going to work with him?”
“Whoa. Hold your horses. I’ve got it wrapped up. We sign an exclusive marketing agreement here tomorrow at 4 o’clock. I’ll explain it to you on our way to Attorney Hawthorne’s office. I need him to draft partnership papers. I’d already told Gino my plans for him to open an assay and express office in Sonora which he’d jumped at. “And if all goes well with the signing tomorrow, you could have the exclusive right to sell Strauss’ work pants to miners provisioning in Sonora.”
Gino was whistling a happy tune when we arrived at Hawthorne’s spartan office. I instructed Hawthorne to drop everything he was working on and get to work on the partnership agreement I laid out to him. I offered him ten percent of the partnership profit if he would agree to handle the partnership’s legal work. He’d need to figure a way to patent the work pants. After carefully examining the workmanship, Hawthorne said, “We can trademark his name and maybe the riveting, but we’re sure to have competitors with knock-offs if these pants catch on as I think they will. They’re stronger and more durable than anything on the market that I’ve seen.”
“Then time is of essence as you lawyers claim. We have to get into production before competitors get wind of our scheme. Gino, find Strauss and check him into a nice out-of-the-way boarding house with good food and help him sell his cart. We don’t want him blabbing about his new venture all over town. Then use the telegraph to corner the market for all available denim cloth available with suppliers in Sacramento and Stockton. Buy up everything available in town. Get on it pronto,” I said hurrying out the door on my way to Teri Rios who was still running our wine bar on the wharf. As it was late in the afternoon, I helped her and Giselle close for the day.
Once we had all the gear stowed, I invited Teri to have a glass of wine with me in the forecastle of our ship, which now had wine bins, tables and a small bar for wine tasting, another one of many planned ventures. I laid out for Teri my agreement with Levi Strauss and let her examine the two pairs of denim work pants I removed from a satchel.
“They’re good quality. Where do I fit in?” Teri queried.
“I thought once we get into production, you could sell them in your bodega. We’d provide them to you ready to sell. You add your markup to our wholesale price and sell them for us. He’s been able to sell them for $6 a pair and I think we can make them cheaply once we get the cloth. It should bring you a lot of new business. And since your bodega is currently vacant until we can find the right couple to run our concessions here, I would like to rent your store. We would use it to manufacture a supply of work pants until we can find a suitable workshop.”
“Where will you get tailors to cut the garments and seamstresses to sew them?” Teri asked.
“Consul Dillon will find them for me. He’s got all those “Ingots” to house and feed until he can find them jobs; there’s bound to be skilled cutters and sewers among them. He maintains a list of skills for all the poor souls he has to find places for. He’ll be thrilled if I can supply work for some of his charges.”
“You can count on me. I’m glad to have my store occupied until I can open it for business. I’m always afraid another group of squatters will break in and trash the premises. You don’t have to pay me rent given all you’ve done for me. I’m happy to help and I know I can make money selling these work pants. They’re hardy and durable. I can see why miners and artisans would prefer them to the flimsy cotton and canvas ones most suppliers offer.”
I was pumped up and excited walking home in a dense fog. Our winter and start of spring was strange so far. We’d had less rain than the year before, but more blustery wind and bone-chilling fog that had already claimed two ships off the fog-shrouded coast near Bolinas. The mail steamship “Tennessee” wrecked on the rocks by Bolinas Bay in March with 600 passengers aboard. Fortunately, the ship was close enough to the sandy beach of the bay that all passengers including many women and children were saved along with most of the cargo. The steamship “S.S. Lewis” met a similar fate at the beginning of April when it beached in heavy fog north of Bolinas Bay and all 585 passengers were saved.
Manon had opened our restaurant for lunch and we wouldn’t do a dinner service until the weekend two days hence. That would give me a short window of time to get all the elements in place to start production on Strauss’ denim work pants. I bounded up the stairs to our apartment over our restaurant two at a time. Manon was bouncing Fanny on her knee and cooing in Jules’ direction while Jules howled his displeasure from his crib. He was about to let go with another round when he spied me and changed his tactic. “Papa,