William Chapman Ralston: The Magician of San Fransisco

After honing his piloting skills on the Mississippi River, William Chapman Ralston arrived into San Francisco five years after the start of the California Gold Rush, discovering an instant boom town lacking infrastructure, lawfulness and stable commerce.

Ralston’s Comstock Lode Fortune

Ambitious and genial by nature, Billy Ralston became a partner in a growing steamship line, using his profits to join forces with his womanizing, Gilded Age business partner, William Sharon.

Together, Ralston and Sharon made immense fortunes in the Virginia City Comstock silver rush, infusing their millions into California-based companies created and managed by Ralston himself. He also started the Bank of California, which ultimately grew into the largest banking institution west of St. Louis, which in turn prompted San Franciscans to nickname the dashing socialite The Magician of San Francisco.

Known for throwing lavish parties at his Knob Hill mansion or his 55,000 square foot summer mansion in Belmont, the press soon coined these socialite gatherings “Ralston Nights,” both for the celebrities in attendance and the outrageous extravagance of each event.

Ralston Funds His Own Demise

A robust, strapping man, Billy Ralston swam in the icy waters of San Francisco Bay on a near daily basis, and when the Big Four ran low on money while laying tracks through the slow and treacherous Sierra Nevada mountains, Ralston loaned Leland Stanford $100,000.00—nearly two million in today’s currency—to tide the Big Four over to the next federal payout for their part in the construction of The Transcontinental Railroad.

In return, Stanford promised Ralston that no competitive goods would enter western markets upon the completion of the cross-country railroad, and when Stanford ultimately reneged on that promise, combined with his own financial overreach, Ralston’s many companies collapsed under competitive pressures from back east.

Ralston’s fall from magician status became complete when a run on his Bank of California forced the bank to suspend. The next day, after his board of directors forced his resignation, Ralston signed all his assets over to William Sharon, who would later settle Ralston’s debts for a greed-inspired profit of many millions of dollars.

The Controversial Death of Billy Ralston

Departing his once-grand bank on an unusually hot day on August 27th, 1875, Ralston ran into his physician on the street, who told the fallen tycoon that he looked unusually pale and sweaty.

Feeling oddly elated—like a school boy released for the summer—Ralston waved off his doctor’s concerns, heading to his swim club where he swam out toward Alcatraz Island and drowned. News of his death sent shock waves throughout the west coast, while many, including Sharon himself, believed that Ralston’s death was a suicide.

So beloved by San Franciscans for all his many achievements, in 1941, 66 years after his passing, the people of San Francisco erected an obelisk in his memory.