Montgomery Block (1860)

December 23, 1853 - Montgomery Block opened as San Francisco's largest, most expensive, most desirable office property; built by Halleck, Peachey, and Billings (HPB) law firm (estimated total cost of $2,000,000); largest building in West until 1875 (Palace Hotel) - 150 offices, 14 street-level stores, 28 basement areas; 1959 - torn down.

June 15, 1861 - Dr. Charles McCormick, Lewis Cass Wittenmyer, six other men, mostly from Martinez, CA, founded The Black Diamond Coal Mining Company in San Francisco, CA to mine coal in foothills of Mount Diablo, 35 miles northeast of San Francisco (Cumberland mine, Black Diamond mine); not much demand for first coal mined from Mount Diablo mines (coal-burning equipment designed to burn different type of coal, shipped from Washington Territory, British Columbia, England, Australia at great expense); engineer on Chrysopolis, 240-foot-long steamer ("Golden City" in Greek; California Steam Navigation Company) discovered that Mount Diablo coal burned well if fire boxes were modified (demand for local coal dramatically increased); 1865 - Alvinza Hayward (made millions in gold mining), Louis McLane (General Manager of Wells Fargo Express, son of prominent U. S. statesman), group of wealthy capitalists with ties to Bank of California, California Steam Navigation Company initiated secret takeover attempt (bank clerk bought more than 85% of Company’s stock, transferred stock to Hayward et al); January 29, 1866 - attended special shareholders’ meeting, filled majority of positions on Board of Directors; 1868 - completed railroad from Company’s coal mines to Black Diamond Landing on San Joaquin River; survived land-grab attempt (legal battle over portion of its mining property at Nortonville, CA ended in lawsuit heard before United States Supreme Court), disastrous mine explosion (killed seven men, injured eight more), multiple fires (engine-house of hoisting works over new shaft, fire destroyed 14 buildings in town of Nortonville); early 1885 - closed mining operation at Nortonville, dismantled railroad; 1890 - formed wholly owned subsidiary named “Southport Land and Commercial Company” to act as land development, leasing unit of mining company; transferred most assets in California and Oregon to newly formed subsidiary; 1894 - 23 drowned in tragic shipwreck (Ivanhoe, part of fleet of ocean faring ships and river vessels, sank during a storm on trip from Seattle to San Francisco); 1890s - helped finance Mutual Electric Light Company in San Francisco (large consumer of Company’s coal; later became part of Pacific Gas and Electric Company); 1904 - Alvinza Hayward died (Chairman, largest stockholder); sold its coal mine at Black Diamond, Washington (exited coal producing business); 1905 - Southport Land and Commercial Company began to develop town of Black Diamond, California (now part of City of Pittsburg); 1906 - most company records lost in Great San Francisco Earthquake; 1907 - Bellingham Bay Lumber Company acquired; launched Black Diamond Coal Mining Company lumbering, manufacturing (owned, operated one of largest sawmills in world, capacity to produce 375,000 feet of lumber every ten hours); 1912 - sold lumber, manufacturing operations; Black Diamond Coal Mining Company focused on managing Southport Land and Commercial Company; September 1949 -  Nortonville mines closed; 1930s-1940s - erected, leased commercial properties, single family residences, apartment buildings in town of Pittsburg; 1953 - severed last remaining tie to coal mining industry; 1959 - merged Southport Land and Commercial Company subsidiary into mining company; The Black Diamond Coal Mining Company renamed Southport Land and Commercial Company; July 1, 2007 - moved corporate office to Martinez, CA; oldest stock corporation still in existence;  California’s fourth oldest corporation of any type (other existing California corporations can trace their history to before 1861 but dates of incorporation of current corporate existence are much later).

January 15, 1875 - Henry Mayo Newhall (49), auctioneer turned venture capitalist, paid less than $2/acre for 46,460 acres of Rancho San Francisco (encompassed most of western Santa Clarita Valley, into Ventura County); December 23, 1936 - Athioll McBean (grandson) struck oil on property; changed name to Newhall Ranch, then to Newhall Land and Farming Company

1879 - William Morrison DeWolf established DeWolf Realty Company, Inc. in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco;  with William Waldo DeWolf (son) managed, developed, sold properties throughout San Francisco, Northern California; 1949 - Oliver A. Talmage joined company, soon became partner, eventually sole owner; became exclusive Management Broker for all Veteran's Administration properties developed, managed by VA throughout San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin counties; 1982 - William A.Talmage (son) assumed ownership; oldest real estate firm west of Mississippi.

1886 - Real estate boom began in southern California; late summer 1887 - peak; estimated 2300 real estate agents in Los Angeles; cattle industry supplanted by vineyard, citrus industries in 1860s.

1890 - Frank P. Wiggins, tuberculosis survivor after moving to southern California from Indiana in 1886, joined Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce; leading designer of campaign promoting Los Angeles as healthiest climate in the country; turned underpopulated agricultural county into great city; created"Los Angeles on Wheels", traveling railroad exhibits to midwestern and eastern cities; 1893 - attracted about 10 million people; 1897 - Wiggins named Secretary of Chamber;  1890-1930 - population of Los Angeles rose from about 50,000 to 1.2 million.

1904 - Nelson P. Wheeler, James P. Soper formed Soper-Wheeler Company; acquired 14,000 acres of forested land on west slope of Sierra Nevada between Yuba and Feather Rivers; 1935 - James P. Soper Jr. became president; 1942 - signed contract with Sacramento Box and Lumber Company for construction of modern sawmill at Woodleaf, CA to process all of Company's timber (ended in 1965); 1958 - joined forces with United States Forest Service to develop 2,000-acre Experimental Forest in Challenge, CA (research on tree growth, diseases, managerial program to support timber cutting on sustained yield basis); 1973 - California’s First Lady Nancy Reagan planted Company's one-millionth tree; 1978 - owned about 60,000 acres of forest lands holding approximately 700 million board feet of uncut timber with annual growth rate of 24 million board feet; 2000 - established douglas-fir, redwood plantations in New Zealand.

August 27, 1906 - Colbert Coldwell, two partners formed real estate company, Tucker, Lynch and Coldwell; dedicated to principle that they would work only for customers, not trade for their own account; 1913 - Benjamin Arthur Banker joined firm as salesman; 1914 - became partner; 1981 - acquired by Sears, Roebuck and Co. (member of Sears Financial Network); 1990 - locations in fifty states, expanded internationally with offices in Canada, Puerto Rico; 1993 - acquired by Fremont Group (private investment company, formerly known as Bechtel Investments, Inc.), company senior management; May 1996 - acquired by HFS Incorporated, world´s largest franchisor of hotels, residential real estate brokerage offices; 1997 - HFS merged with CUC International, formed Cendant Corporation; July 31, 2006 - Cendant spun off Real Estate Services Division, named Realogy Corporation.

1910 - Frank Howard Allen, Jr. opened real estate office in San Anselmo, CA; 1949 - Charles Howard Allen (son) named partner; name changed to Frank Howard Allen & Son; 1953 - Charles Allen took helm; 1966 - acquired by Jeffory Morshead; 1989 - acquired by Larry and Brennie Brackett (Morshead's cousin); 48th largest realtor in U.S., largest percentage of market share in Marin County, strong presence in Sonoma County; 2009 - sales of $1.9 billion.

1919 - Samuel Finley Brown Morse, distant cousin of telegraph-inventor Samuel Finley Breese Morse and manager for Pacific Improvement Company (headed by "Big Four", had extensive real estate holdings on Monterey Peninsula), formed Del Monte Properties Company, acquired holdings of Pacific Improvement Company (18,000-acre Del Monte unit including Hotel Del Monte, The Lodge at Pebble Beach, two golf courses); February 22, 1919 - grand opening of Pebble Beach Golf Links, The Lodge at Pebble Beach; 1948 - U.S. Navy bought Hotel Del Monte from the Del Monte Properties Company for $2.2 million (now Naval Postgraduate School); January 1977 - Del Monte Properties Company reincorporated as Pebble Beach Corporation; 1978 - acquired by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation after financial success of Star Wars, reorganized it as Pebble Beach Company; 1990 - acquired by Ben Hogan Properties, owned by Japanese business man Minoru Isutani; March 1992 - acquired by Taiheiyo Golf Club of Japan; 1999 - acquired from The Lone Cypress Company by group of American investors, headed by Peter Ueberroth.

November 24, 1949 (Thanksgiving Day) - Alexander C.  Cushing, former Wall Street lawyer, with $400,000 of his own money , investment from few friends, opened Squaw Valley Development Company, "uphill transportation business" (first visited in 1946); May 1, 1949 - John Buchman, former taxi-driver from Morristown, NJ, became company's first employee "at the business end of a shovel" (over period of 45 years became General Manager, President, Director of the Company);  1960 - hosted VIII Olympic Winter Games (beating internationally regarded resorts such as Innsbruck, Austria, St. Moritz, Switzerland, Garmisch-Partenkirschen, Germany).

June 6, 1978 - California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 13; primary ballot initiative cut property taxes sharply, required two-thirds majority vote in both houses of the State Legislature to approve new tax increases. Property tax rates were capped, and homeowners were shielded from increases in their tax assessments even as the value of their homes rose. Did not turn California into a low-tax state, did not put state and local governments on a 30-year starvation diet. Property tax revenues to Los Angeles County, the state's and nation's largest by population, suffered after Prop. 13 (see chart). But that revenue source recovered, registered a 3.7% average annual gain since the mid-1960s, and 7.0% gain since passage of Prop. 13. Local governments were able to raise other taxes and fees (business license taxes) without much opposition.  The net effect of the evolving revenue mix on California's taxpayers was to leave them very close to where they were before Prop. 13 — near the top in rankings of taxes paid. The Tax Foundation (tracked these statistics since 1977) ranked California's total state and local tax burden at 10.5% of per capita income, 6th highest among the 50 states and DC. 

(http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/PhotoPopup.aspx?id=481550)

February 2009 - Southern California Median Home Price Rise and Decline: 5-year/1-month Rise from $246,000 in February 20002 to $505,000 in March 2007; 1-year/6-month decline from $505,000 in March 2007 to $250,000 in January 2009.

(Coldwell, Banker), Jo Ann L. Levy (1981). Behind the Western Skyline: Coldwell Banker: The First 75 years. (Los Angeles, CA: Coldwell Banker, 210 p.). and Company--History.

(Huntington), William B. Friedricks (1992).  Henry E. Huntington and the Creation of Southern California. (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 229 p.). Huntington, Henry Edwards, 1850-1927; Businesspeople--California, Southern--Biography; Entrepreneurship--California, Southern--History--20th century.

(Huntington), James Thorpe (1994). Henry Edwards Huntington: A Biography. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 623 p.). Huntington, Henry Edwards, 1850-1927; Capitalists and financiers--United States--Biography.

(Robert Mayer Corp.), Robert Mayer and Peter Weisz (2008). Without Risk There's No Reward. (Santa Ana, CA, Seven Locks Press, 367 p.). Founder, Robert Mayer Corp. . Mayer, Robert; Robert Mayer Corp.; real estate development--southern California--history. Modest beginnings as day laborer amid post-war Southern California housing boom, to his years as regions largest developer of multifamily residential housing; role in creating Huntington Beach’s Waterfront Hilton, Hyatt Regency Resort & Spa–both of which have helped make HB major tourist destination.

(Soper-Wheeler Company), Michael J. Gillis (2003). Soper-Wheeler Company: A Century of Growing Trees. (Seattle, WA: Documentary Media,  256 p.). Soper-Wheeler Company; forest Products -- California -- history. Oldest privately owned timber company in California;  two families came west at end of 19th century, formed successful timber business in California’s Sierra Nevada; company’s 100-year evolution, its place in forest products industry.

(WorldBuild Technologies Inc.), David Gottfried; foreword by Paul Hawken (2004).  Greed to Green: The Transformation of an Industry and a Life. (Berkeley, CA: WorldBuild Publishing, 243 p.). President (WorldBuild Technologies Inc.). Gottfried, David--Biography; Real estate development--Environmental aspects--United States; Land use--Environmental aspects--United States; Building--Environmental aspects--United States; Green movement--United States; Real estate developers--Biography.

Glenn S. Dumke (1991). The Boom of the Eighties in Southern California. (Los Angles. CA, Huntington Library Press, 336 p. [orig. pub. 1944].). History Faculty (Occidental College). Real estate development--southern California--history. Companion volume to The Cattle on a Thousand Hills: Southern California 1850-80 by Robert Glass Cleland; from early days of Anglo settlement of region in 19th century to period when immigration explosion created Southern California of 20th century; decades after Civil War - great ranchos of Southern California broke up, vine and citrus culture gradually replaced Spanish-Mexican pastoral economy; Los Angeles, nucleus of boom, increased in size by 500%; many new suburban towns were incorporated; trolley lines built, banks founded, orange groves irrigated; 1876 - arrival of Southern Pacific Railroad increased immigration, prospective settlers swarmed in from most of United States, many countries of Europe; millions of dollars changed hands in realty transactions; 1880s - land boom of unprecedented proportions.

W. W. Robinson (1948). Land in California, The Story of Mission Lands, Ranchos, Squatters, Mining Claims, Railroad Grants, Land Scrip [and] Homesteads. (Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press 291 p.). Land use -- California; Real property -- California.

Elaine Young (1979). A Million Dollars Down. (New York, NY: Dell, 174 p.). Realtor to the Stars in Beverly Hills. Young, Elaine; Real estate agents--Los Angeles--Biography. Trials, tribulations of real estate business.