Skip to content
The fortunes of Levi’s® are inextricably linked to travel and immigration.
In 1847, Levi Strauss left his hometown of Buttenheim in Bavaria, and travelled by boat to New York to join his brother Jonas who had established a small but thriving business. Like most young men of the time, his port of arrival into the U.S. was probably Ellis Island.

At the end of January 1853, Levi became an American citizen, and in February he headed for the West Coast, travelling once more by boat via the Isthmus of Panama. He arrived in bustling San Francisco in early March and soon established a wholesale business on 90 Sacramento Street, very close to the waterfront – handy for receiving and selling the goods that arrived by ship.

Levi’s new company imported ‘dry goods’ – clothing, underwear, umbrellas, handkerchiefs and bolts of fabric – and sold them to the small stores that were springing up all over California and the West. A few years later he met another European immigrant, Riga-born tailor Jacob Davis. Together they created and patented the first blue jeans, on May 20th, 1873.

Levis Vintage Clothing

Locayta Search

Search Criteria


text-only site map