Levi Strauss emigrated from Bavaria to New York in 1847, then moved to San Francisco in 1853 to open a West Coast branch of his brothers' dry goods business. He sold fabric, blankets, and supplies to Gold Rush merchants and miners. The dry goods trade was unglamorous but profitable. Strauss built a successful business over two decades before Davis, one of his customers, approached him with the rivet idea that would make both their names synonymous with American workwear.

For the first century of their existence, Levi's jeans were working clothes worn by cowboys, farmers, and factory workers. The transformation into a fashion icon began in the 1950s, when James Dean and Marlon Brando wore jeans in films associating denim with rebellion. By the 1960s, jeans had crossed every social boundary. International markets discovered them as symbols of American informality and freedom.

Levi Strauss & Co. remains headquartered in San Francisco at Levi's Plaza on the North Waterfront. The company went public, went private, and went public again, but it has never left the city where Levi Strauss opened his first wholesale house. The headquarters sits blocks from where ships once brought miners to the Gold Rush -- the same miners who needed pants tough enough to survive a day in the diggings.