What was Levi Strauss's original business when he moved to San Francisco?

When Levi Strauss moved to San Francisco, his original business was a dry goods store.

Strauss arrived in San Francisco in 1853 to represent his family’s wholesale dry-goods business during the California Gold Rush. The city was a major commercial hub, and the firm supplied practical merchandise such as clothing, bedding, combs, purses, and handkerchiefs rather than operating a clothing factory or tailor shop.

His business began at 90 Sacramento Street and later moved to another address on Sacramento Street. Strauss imported goods from his brothers’ New York operation and sold them through a wholesale house. Blue jeans came later, after tailor Jacob W. Davis proposed strengthening work pants with copper rivets.

In 1873, Strauss and Davis received a patent for riveted clothing. That invention transformed the company, but it did not describe Strauss’s original San Francisco enterprise. The firm’s beginnings were in general merchandise and dry goods, with denim workwear developing as the business responded to customers’ needs.