Wormser, Sigmund

Sigmund Wormser was born in southern Germany on December 11, 1859, and educated in his native country before attending college in Ireland. He traveled extensively as a young man, working in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Cape Colony, South Africa, Sydney, Australia, and the South Sea Islands. In 1886, he arrived in San Francisco, California, and soon settled in Kingsburg, Fresno County, where he opened a mercantile store and owned a forty-acre vineyard.

Moving to Fresno in 1889, Sigmund prospered in real estate, oil speculation, and local enterprise as an organizer of the Oil City Petroleum Company in Coalinga. He transformed an unimproved 120-acre ranch in Stone Canyon into a top fruit property and established a major furniture store at 1022 J Street in 1904. Married to San Francisco native Anna Jacobson, with whom he had a daughter named Elka, he served as a director of the Merchants Association, maintained a thirty-two year membership in the Knights of Pythias, and led key local charity organizations.