banker merchant philanthropist
Darius Ogden Mills was born on September 25, 1825, in North Salem, Westchester County, New York. His parents were James and Hannah (Ogden) Mills. The Mills family was of North-of-England origin and had come to America before the Revolution.
Darius' father was unfortunate in local investments, and at the age of seventeen, after an elementary education at excellent private schools in the neighborhood of his home, the boy was obliged to go to work.
As a clerk in New York City, Mills showed aptitude for the mercantile and banking business and in 1847, when he was but twenty-two years old, he became on invitation of a cousin, cashier of the Merchants' Bank of Erie County, Buffalo, New York, with a percentage share in the institution's profits. Discovery of gold in California in 1848 started an exodus of young Eastern businessmen to the Pacific Coast. Two of Mills's brothers had equipped a sailing ship with merchandise and had embarked for San Francisco by the Cape Horn route. Mills himself hesitated long, but at the end of 1848 set forth for the same destination by way of the Isthmus. He went as a passenger, provided with the necessary money to engage in merchandising or banking, or both. Unable to obtain passage from Panama to San Francisco previous north-bound vessels having been deserted by their crews in the "gold rush" from the California port and tied up in that harbor Mills turned to the West coast of South America, and at Callao was able to charter a bark. Arriving at San Francisco in June 1849, he at once bought merchandise and proceeded to establish a trading business; first, temporarily, at Stockton; then, and permanently, at Sacramento. His undertaking, which comprised not only buying of gold dust and selling of goods but dealing in New York exchange, proved highly profitable. After a brief visit to the East at the end of 1849, he returned to Sacramento, establishing there in 1850 the Bank of D. O. Mills & Company, which thereafter led in the business activities of the city. During the following decade, he accumulated a large fortune. In 1864, he was active in organizing the Bank of California at San Francisco, of which he was president until July 1873. Two years later, however, as a result of business conditions following the panic of 1873 and also of the rash policies of his successor in the institution's presidency, W. C. Ralston, the Bank of California was forced to suspend payments, and Mills was called back to his old office. Through his endeavors, barely a month after the bank had closed, it resumed business and entered on a career of prolonged prosperity. In March 1878, he definitely retired from active business on the Pacific Coast, though retaining large investments in that section. Residing thereafter in New York City, he became investor and director in many of the large Eastern banking, railway, and industrial concerns.
During his residence on the Pacific Coast, Mills had been an organizer and important benefactor of such Californian enterprises as the San Francisco Protestant Orphan Asylum, St. Luke's Hospital, and the University of California, of which he long acted as regent and treasurer. He also contributed largely to the Lick Observatory, of which he was trustee, and in behalf of which he personally equipped and sent to South America in 1903 an astronomical expedition to study solar phenomena. A number of local institutions are named for him, include Isabella I of Castile Mills Hospital, the Mills Estate housing subdivision, San Francisco's Mills Building, and Mills High School. The city of Millbrae, California, is also named after him, as well. The California State Capitol rotunda houses a statue donated by Mills that depicts Queen Isabella financing Christopher Columbus's initial voyage. The San Francisco airport, was formerly named Mills Field, after him.
Quotations: "I was taught very early that I would have to depend entirely upon myself; that my future lay in my own hands. "
He was active in philanthropic enterprises, notably in the construction, during 1888 and afterward, of the "Mills hotels. " These embodied a pioneer attempt to provide household accommodations at a low cost but with modern equipment, for people of small means. In them, a bed in a private room was obtainable for twenty cents a night, and wholesome meals could be secured at prices ranging from five to fifteen cents. They were so carefully managed that, despite the small charges, they returned to the owner a slight surplus over interest, taxes, maintenance, and depreciation. Mills was connected with other enterprises for providing shelter and credit at low rates and with numerous public charities; he was also a generous contributor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Botanical Garden.
Personally, he was a man of quick and positive decision on financial problems and of strong executive capacity. He never courted publicity, and was sometimes described as retiring in manner; but he possessed a quiet urbanity in social conversation, which displayed itself in his numerous visits to the country houses of well-known Englishmen, and in his contacts with British statesmen and royalty. During his later years, he spent much time in foreign travel, increasing in his European visits his collections of books and paintings.
Mills was married, September 5, 1854, to Jane Templeton Cunningham, and was survived by two children.
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