35 Facts About Lucky Baldwin

Elias Jackson "Lucky" Baldwin was "one of the greatest pioneers" of California business, an investor, and real estate speculator during the second half of the 19th century.

Lucky Baldwin earned the nickname "Lucky" Baldwin due to his extraordinary good fortune in a number of business deals.

Lucky Baldwin built the luxury Baldwin Hotel and Theatre in San Francisco and bought vast tracts of land in Southern California, where a number of places and neighborhoods are named after him.

Lucky Baldwin received little formal education but was known as a strong-willed, independent individual.

Lucky Baldwin sold the businesses in Valparaiso and used the profits to purchase wagons and supplies for a trip west.

Outside Salt Lake City, his caravan was attacked by less friendly Native Americans and Lucky Baldwin barely escaped with his life.

Lucky Baldwin sold the tobacco and tea and used the profits to buy horses.

Lucky Baldwin immediately bought the Temperance Hotel on Pacific Avenue near Battery Street with $5,000 cash which he sold only 30 days later for a $5,000 profit.

Lucky Baldwin was active in the lively real estate market, bought a livery, bought and sold goods, and invested in the stock market, becoming a key player in the San Francisco Stock Exchange.

Lucky Baldwin later started a brick-manufacturing plant at Powell and Union Streets, producing building materials that were used to construct the US Mint, Fort Point and the fort on Alcatraz Island.

Lucky Baldwin was rescued from his rooms when the entire building was destroyed by fire in 1898.

Lucky Baldwin sold the livery and prepared to leave for India.

In 1880, Lucky Baldwin bought the resort when it went into foreclosure.

Lucky Baldwin re-christened the property the "Tallac House" after nearby 9,785 feet Mount Tallac, one of the tallest mountains in the Lake Tahoe basin.

Lucky Baldwin divorced his wife Sarah and in 1875, Baldwin moved to Southern California and bought the Rancho Santa Anita in the fertile San Gabriel Valley from Harris Newmark.

Lucky Baldwin met with Newmark again, carrying a tin-box containing several million dollars, and withdrew $12,500 cash from it as a first payment.

Lucky Baldwin invested in the Temple and Workman Bank, and when it failed, he acquired even more land through default.

Lucky Baldwin made additions to the Hugo Reid Adobe house by Lake.

When people began moving to Southern California in large numbers during the 1880s, Lucky Baldwin subdivided some of his land, creating the towns of Arcadia and Monrovia, California.

Lucky Baldwin was financially tightfisted in his business dealings, but led a flamboyant lifestyle.

Lucky Baldwin was especially free-spending when it came to women.

Lucky Baldwin was married four times, the first two marriages ending in divorce.

Lucky Baldwin died of tuberculosis at the age of 23, leaving him with a five-year-old daughter.

Lucky Baldwin remarried a 16-year-old dark-haired, dark-eyed girl called Lillie Bennett who had a striking resemblance to Jennie.

Lucky Baldwin reportedly had many affairs with young women in his older years.

Lucky Baldwin was sued by four women for breach of promise of marriage.

One woman remembered for accusing him of breach of promise shot and wounded him in 1883 with a pistol inside his luxury Lucky Baldwin Hotel, built in 1876 on the northeast corner of Powell and Market St The woman's name was Fannie Verona Lucky Baldwin, a native of Olympia in what was then Washington Territory.

Lucky Baldwin narrowly escaped death in a San Francisco courtroom on July 2,1896.

Lucky Baldwin bred and raced a number of top Thoroughbred racehorses.

Lucky Baldwin raced under the nom de course "Santa Anita Stable".

In 2018, Lucky Baldwin was voted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame as one of its esteemed Pillars of the Turf.

Lucky Baldwin is most well-known today for his involvement in horse racing.

Lucky Baldwin founded the original Santa Anita Park racetrack on his estate, breeding and racing some of the finest racehorses of his time.

Lucky Baldwin's nickname appears as the name of three pubs in Pasadena and Sierra Madre.

In 2013, the city of Arcadia installed a 9-foot bronze statue of Baldwin titled A Dawn in the West by artist Alfred Paredes in the Monsignor Gerald M O'Keefe Rose Garden near the main southern gate of Santa Anita Park race track.