Darius Ogden Mills
Darius Ogden Mills | |
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Darius Ogden Mills
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Born | North Salem, New York, United States |
September 25, 1825
Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Millbrae, California, United States |
Cause of death | Heart attack |
Resting place | Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Sleepy Hollow, New York |
Occupation | Banker, investor, mining & railway executive, philanthropist |
Spouse(s) | Jane Templeton Cunningham |
Children | Ogden, Elisabeth |
Relatives | Sister: Adeline Mills Easton |
Darius Ogden Mills (September 25, 1825 – January 3, 1910) was a prominent American banker and philanthropist. For a time, he was California's wealthiest citizen.[1]
Contents
Biography
He was born in North Salem, New York, and his early career was as a bank clerk and retailer. He joined the California Gold Rush in December 1848, and founded a bank in Sacramento. He never invested in gold mining or silver mining directly, as he considered mining to be too speculative. He rather started ancillary businesses that supported the mining industry, such as banks and railroads. He was a part owner of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, which was the only link from the Comstock Lode to the Central Pacific Railroad. The major share holder in the railroad was William Sharon, whom WIlliam Ralston had sent to Virginia City as representative of the Bank of California.
In 1864, with other investors, he founded the Bank of California, which grew large in the 1860s and 1870s, but collapsed due to financial irregularities involving its chief cashier, William Chapman Ralston. Mills used his personal fortune to revive the bank, along with Sharon, and attract new investment, and within three years, the bank was again strong.
In 1854, he married Jane Templeton Cunningham with whom he had a son, Ogden and a daughter, Elisabeth, who married Ambassador Whitelaw Reid.
Mills bought part of Rancho Buri Buri and built an estate named Millbrae, which gave its name to the present town that grew up around it. The 150 acres (0.6 km2) of the original estate bordering San Francisco Bay were leased by his grandson Ogden L. Mills to be used for Mills Field, now known as San Francisco International Airport.
Later in life, Mills retired from banking, and returned to New York, where he participated in the development of a number of buildings in Manhattan, including 160 Bleecker Street, or "Mills House No. 1". His devotion to philanthropy involved sitting on the boards of a number of charitable and cultural institutions. He died of a heart attack in 1910 at his Millbrae home, leaving an estate worth $36,227,391.[2][3]
His remains were returned to the East Coast for burial in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York.[3]
Legacy
A number of local institutions are named for him, include Isabella I of Castileg Mills Hospital, the Mills Estate housing subdivision, San Francisco's Mills Building, and Mills High School.
The California State Capitol rotunda houses a statue donated by Mills that depicts Queen Isabella financing Christopher Columbus's initial voyage.
References
- ↑ Pecuniary Emulation by Gray Brechin.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to [[commons:Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 506: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).|Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 506: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).]]. |
- November 27, 1898 New York Times feature article on Darius Ogden Mills
- January 4, 1910 Los Angeles Times obituary for Darius Ogden Mills
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- Pages with broken file links
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- American bankers
- American philanthropists
- Businesspeople from California
- Philanthropists from California
- People of the California Gold Rush
- 1825 births
- 1910 deaths
- Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
- People from Millbrae, California
- People from North Salem, New York
- People from San Mateo County, California