Joshua Abraham Norton turned his lost fortune into an imperial legacy.
In 1849, Joshua Abraham am Norton, born in England around 1818, arrived in San Francisco, California, from South Africa with a $30,000 inheritance and dreams of business successes. Those dreams came true.
He developed not one but many successful ventures—a retail store selling gold-mining supplies, a cigar factory, a rice mill and real estate. By 1855, his fortune was estimated at more than a quarter of a million dollars.
This story is from the December 2016 edition of True West.
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This story is from the December 2016 edition of True West.
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