Jacob Davis: The Reno Tailor Who Riveted the First Blue Jeans

In the winter of 1870–71, a woodcutter's wife walked into a tailor shop on Virginia Street in Reno, Nevada, and asked for a pair of work pants her husband could not tear. The tailor was Jacob Davis, a Latvian-born immigrant who had spent two years stitching tents, wagon covers, and horse blankets for the railroad crews. He answered her with a handful of copper rivets driven into the pocket corners, the same rivets he used on horse-blanket straps. The pants held. Three years later, U.S. Patent No. 139,121 made the idea the property of Davis and Levi Strauss & Co., and the blue jean had its birthday: May 20, 1873.

It also had a birthplace, and it was Reno, a town barely a year old when Davis opened his shop. This is the story of the man behind the rivet: a tailor born Jacob Youphes in Riga, renamed in New York, carried west by every gold and silver rush that would have him. It is a workwear story, which is where an antiques shop comes in. Early riveted pants are among the most coveted objects in American clothing collecting, and nearly every detail collectors prize, from the copper to the cinch to the stitching, traces back to Davis's bench on the Truckee.

A Tailor in a Brand-New Town

Jacob Youphes was born in 1831 in Riga, then part of the Russian Empire and now the capital of Latvia, and trained there as a tailor. He crossed to New York in 1854, took the name Jacob Davis, and kept moving: Maine, then San Francisco in 1856, then the gold camps of California and the Fraser River rush in British Columbia, where he married Annie Packscher. Six children followed. By 1867 he was back in San Francisco and bound for the Comstock, and the road that carried him to Virginia City carried him on to Reno.

Reno in 1868 was a railroad depot with lots for sale. The Central Pacific had just reached the Truckee, and the town was being platted around the tracks. Davis helped Frederick Hertlein put up a brewery, and in 1869 he opened a tailor shop on Virginia Street, the town's main road. The work was practical and heavy: tents, horse blankets, and wagon covers for teamsters and the railroad crews who passed through. His cotton duck and denim came by freight from San Francisco, from the wholesale house of Levi Strauss & Co. A small shop, a family living in the back, a bolt of canvas on the table. No photograph of it is known.

Copper, a Woodcutter, and a Three-Dollar Pair

Davis already knew what a rivet could do. He had been using them to hold the straps on his horse blankets, where cloth meets leather and the load is constant. When the woodcutter's wife came in, her husband was a large man who tore through the pockets of every pair he owned. Davis set copper rivets at the places where a seam takes its worst strain: the upper corners of each pocket and the base of the fly. The first pair sold for $3. The name of the woman who ordered it is lost, but the pants are not. They were the first riveted work trousers anyone had made.

Word moved down the railroad line faster than Davis could sew. The first pairs were cut from white and brown cotton duck, and within a few years the order books filled with blue denim. He called them waist overalls, the name they would carry for decades, and he soon had orders for some two hundred pairs. The buyers were the men who built Nevada: woodcutters, teamsters, section hands, and the miners of the Comstock Lode, who spent their days underground in the richest silver district in America. Davis had a product and a market. What he did not have was the money to protect either.

Patent No. 139,121 and the Partner in San Francisco

A patent application cost $68, more than Davis could spare, and a tailor without a patent was a tailor waiting to be copied. In 1872 he wrote to the one businessman he knew who could cover it: Levi Strauss, the Bavarian-born dry-goods wholesaler who had been selling him cloth. The offer was simple. Strauss would pay the filing fee, and the two men would share the rights. Strauss said yes.

U.S. Patent No. 139,121, titled “Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings,” was granted on May 20, 1873, to Jacob W. Davis and Levi Strauss & Co. It covered the rivet at the pocket and the seam: a small piece of metal solving a very old problem. Strauss set up a workshop in San Francisco to produce the pants, and Davis moved his family south to run it. He sewed a double arc of stitching across the back pockets that year, a detail the company kept. The shop became a factory, and Davis managed production for the rest of his life. The patent held until 1890. When it expired, every maker in the West began riveting pants.

What Reno and the Collectors Kept

Davis died in San Francisco on January 20, 1908, at seventy-six. In Reno, a historical marker stands on North Virginia Street where his shop did, across from Harrah's, placed on May 20, 2006, exactly 133 years after the patent was granted. The street has changed past recognition. The idea he left on it has not. Reno's other great road story, the Lincoln Highway on Fourth Street, tells how the town kept moving long after the railroad made it; the rivet tells how it clothed the people doing the moving.

For collectors, the first generation of riveted work pants is the ceiling of American workwear. The pieces to look for are brown duck and early denim with a cinch buckle at the back and short tapered belts, a single hip pocket with the double-arc stitch, a leather patch at the center back, and copper rivets stamped with the 1873 patent date. They were made to be worn out, and almost all were. In 2022 a pair of 1880s Levi's pulled from an abandoned Western mine sold for $87,400.

At a Glance: Jacob Davis and the Blue Jean

• Jacob Davis was born Jacob Youphes in Riga, Latvia, in 1831. He emigrated in 1854 and settled in Reno, Nevada, in 1868.
• In 1869 he opened a tailor shop on Virginia Street, making tents, horse blankets, and wagon covers for railroad crews.
• In the winter of 1870–71 he reinforced a customer's work pants with copper rivets at the pocket corners and the base of the fly. The first pair sold for $3.
• His cloth came from the San Francisco wholesale house of Levi Strauss & Co. Unable to afford the $68 patent fee, he wrote to Strauss in 1872 and proposed a partnership.
• U.S. Patent No. 139,121, “Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings,” was granted on May 20, 1873.
• Davis moved to San Francisco to run production and died there on January 20, 1908. The patent expired in 1890.
• A historical marker on North Virginia Street in Reno, placed May 20, 2006, notes the site of his shop.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who invented blue jeans?

Jacob Davis, a Reno tailor, invented the riveted work pant, and he and Levi Strauss patented it together. Strauss supplied the cloth, the capital, and the factory. Davis supplied the idea and the sewing. Neither could have made the blue jean alone.

Why is Reno called the birthplace of the blue jean?

Because the first riveted pair was made there, in Davis's Virginia Street shop in the winter of 1870–71, two years before the patent. San Francisco is where the garment went into production. Reno is where it was invented.

What did Patent No. 139,121 cover?

Metal rivets set at the stress points of work pants, chiefly the corners of the pockets and the base of the fly, so the seams would not tear. It was granted on May 20, 1873, to Jacob W. Davis and Levi Strauss & Co.

What makes antique riveted workwear collectible?

Age, survival, and construction. Pre-1890 pants made under the patent were worn hard and discarded, so few remain. Collectors look for copper rivets, a cinch buckle at the back, the double-arc pocket stitch, original labels, and honest wear in the right places. Condition matters, but originality matters more.

Conclusion

Jacob Davis never became famous the way the company he helped build did. He was a small, careful tailor on a frontier main street who noticed that a seam fails where the strain is greatest, and put a piece of copper there. That is the whole invention, and it is still in the pants you are probably wearing.

We keep returning to Nevada's working history at The Eclection, from the mines of the Comstock to the streets of Reno. To bring a piece of that era home, explore our curated collection at The Eclection.

Resources & Further Reading

For deeper study, these are reliable, non-commercial starting points:

• Online Nevada Encyclopedia — articles on Nevada history, people, and places.
• Nevada Historical Society — the state museum and research library for Nevada history.
• Reno Historical — a community archive of Reno's historic places, photographs, and stories.

Hero image: patent drawing for U.S. Patent No. 139,121 (May 20, 1873), Records of the Patent and Trademark Office, National Archives. U.S. government work, in the public domain.