page_title: Jacob Furth
section_title: Banking and financial positions
hierarchical_section_title: Jacob Furth / Banking and financial positions
caption_attribution_description: English: 1001 First Street, Snohomish, Washington, built 1907 as the first reinforced concrete buildng in Snohomish County. Originally the First National Bank of Snohomish, then First National Bank of Everett, Seattle First National Bank (Seafirst). It then became the Venus Restaurant, and is now a John L. Scott real estate office. In front is a street clock that dates back in 1888 and moved here with the original bank.
context_page_description: Jacob Furth was an Austrian Empire-born American entrepreneur and prominent Seattle banker. He played a key role in consolidating Seattle's electric power and public transportation infrastructure, and was a member of Ohaveth Sholum Congregation, Seattle's first synagogue. Bill Speidel called him "the city's leading citizen for thirty years," adding that Furth "may even have been the most important citizen Seattle ever had."
  Clarence Bagley wrote shortly after Furth's death:
  ... while Jacob Furth was masterful, commanding and dynamic in his business affairs, he regarded business as but one phase of existence, and he was not less the public-spirited citizen and the philanthropist than he was the successful financier. Indeed, there was no period in all of his career when business so occupied his attention that he would not turn to listen to some plan for the city's betterment or some tale whereby his personal aid was sought for an individual or an organization.
context_section_description: In 1882, health problems took Furth to the Puget Sound region in Washington. There, in cooperation with the Schwabachers he helped organize the Puget Sound National Bank with a capital of fifty thousand dollars, and took charge as its cashier. Former Seattle mayor Bailey Gatzert, another Schwabacher associate, was the original bank president. The bank officially opened for business in August 1883. For several months, Furth was the bank's only employee and its only officer in Seattle.
  Puget Sound National Bank succeeded and prospered; at all times the earnings of the bank were sufficient to increase the capital stock as needed. In 1893 he became bank president, a role he held until his bank's consolidation with the Seattle National Bank in 1910, after which he became chairman of the board of directors of the latter. Bagley writes, "He became recognized as one of the foremost factors in banking circles in the northwest, thoroughly conversant with every phase of the business and capable of solving many intricate and complex financial problems."
  Besides the Puget Sound National Bank, he organized the First National Bank of Snohomish in 1896 and remained one of its stockholders and directors the rest of his life. He also founded or co-founded several other Washington State banks, including the Kitsap County Bank in Port Orchard, Washington (1908), still active today as the Kitsap Bank. In 1884 he organized the California Land & Stock Company, owning a 14,000-acre (5,700 ha) farm in Lincoln County, Washington, one of the state's largest. Most of the farm was used to raise wheat; it also pastured cattle and horses. This was another company of which Furth would continue as president until his death. He also invested in property, including Seattle real estate and Pacific Northwest timber lands.
  Further, Furth became increasingly involved in the building and management of urban and interurban electric railway systems. In 1900, backed by Stone & Webster he became president of the Seattle Electric Company (later Puget Power, merged in 1997 into Puget Sound Energy), which in 1916 operated more than 100 miles (160 km) of track. He aided in organizing and became the president of the Puget Sound Electric Railway in 1902, controlling the line between Seattle and Tacoma, Washington and also owning the street railways in Tacoma and most other Puget Sound cities and towns. He was also president of Seattle's Vulcan Iron Works, which he organized in 1887. One of Seattle's first major industrial operations, it covered an entire Seattle city block at Fifth Avenue and Lane Street in what is now the International District, Seattle's Chinatown.
caption: The former First National Bank of Snohomish building, built 1907.
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