A young man named Levi Strauss emigrated in 1851 from Germany to New York to be with his older brothers, who ran a dry goods store. In 1853 he moved to San Francisco to establish his own dry goods business.
In 1872, Jacob Davis, a tailor who frequently purchased bolts of cloth from the Levi Strauss & Co. wholesale house, wrote to Levi asking to partner with him to patent and sell clothing reinforced with rivets. Davis' idea was to use copper rivets to reinforce the points of stress, such as on the pocket corners (shown) and at the bottom of the button fly.
After Levi accepted Davis's offer, the two men received U.S. Patent 139,121, for an "Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings," on May 20, 1873 and BMX girls have been pushing the limits of rivet ever since.
"I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better.
But now I can’t afford to live here anymore." - Idiot Uniformed Voter
