The Place Where Levi's Jeans Were Born

  Many visitors to downtown Reno barely notice the small plaque in front of 211 N. Virginia Street.

  However, the sign, erected in 2006, commemorates one of the most important inventions ever made in the Biggest Little City in the World—Levi’s blue jeans.

  It is located in front of the former location of Jacob W. Davis’ tailor shop and residence. Davis was born Jacob Youphes in Latvia in 1831. He emigrated to America when he was 23 years old (which is when he changed his name) and became a journeyman tailor working in New York, Maine and Northern California.

  In 1868, he came to Reno, where he was initially employed as a laborer helping to build the Reno Brewing Company brewery. About a year later, he opened his own tailor shop, and began making horse blankets, tents and wagon covers for the surveyors and teamsters working on the Central Pacific Railroad.

  In his work, he generally utilized a sturdy, off-white No. 7 Duck cloth and a nine-inch blue denim cloth, both sold to him by a San Francisco manufacturer named Levi Strauss.

  In late 1870, a woman came into his shop to ask Davis to make a special pair of pants for her husband, who was a wood-cutter. She explained that he was far too large for any of the available ready-made clothing—reportedly he had a 56-inch waist—and he needed extra-sturdy pants that wouldn’t rip when he was working.

  She said he was too sick to come to the shop to be measured so she had tied knots in a piece of string to indicate his enormous waist and inseam size.

  Davis decided to try making a giant pair of pants for the gentleman using the thick, ten-ounce No. 7 Duck cloth that he usually used for making tents. His background as a maker of horse blankets provided him with an inventive solution for how to bind the seams and pockets—incorporate copper rivets at the stress points.

  Within a short time, word had spread about Davis’ “waist overalls,” which were tough and dependable. Charging $3 a pair, Davis reportedly sold more than 200 pairs in the next year and a half.

  Recognizing he needed a business partner, in 1872 Davis approached Strauss and asked him for help in applying for a patent for his popular pants. Along the way, he also decided to primarily use the blue cotton twill, which was manufactured in France and called “serge de Nimes,” which was later shortened to “denim.”

  On May 20, 1873, the U.S. Patent Office granted the two an official patent for the denim pants with the copper rivets. That same year, Davis began sewing a double orange threaded stitched design onto the back pocket of the jeans to distinguish them from those made by competitors. This feature was trademarked and remains a distinctive feature of all Levi jeans.  

  Once the patent had been granted, Davis sold his Reno tailor shop and relocated to San Francisco to become the production manager for Strauss’ new denim pants manufacturing plant. He continued in that role until his death in 1908.

  Today, approximately 1.25 billion pairs of Levi’s blue jeans are sold around the world each year.