10“And ladies and gentlemen, I give you our very own Senator Hector de Vile!” William Chapman Ralston, founder of the Bank of California and a millionaire several times over thanks to a furious escalation in his Comstock Lode’s silver shares, beamed and gestured towards his old friend.
Hector de Vile — another Comstock Lode multi-millionaire and first-term Senator — rose and surveyed the glittering crowd in San Francisco’s Occidental Hotel, one of the fanciest places to drink and dine in the city.
The “Quiet House of Peculiar Excellence,” as it liked to advertise itself, boasted San Francisco’s first true cocktail lounge, run by “Professor” Jerry Thomas, a diamond-ringed showman said to have brought civility as well as creativity to the bar scene.
The exclusive group gathered in the bar
