Harris Newmark

Born in 1834, he immigrated to the United States in 1853 and soon settled in Los Angeles, where he built a successful career in trade and wholesale groceries. Sources consistently describe him as deeply involved in the city’s civic, economic, and Jewish communal life over many decades.

He is especially remembered for Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853–1913, a memoir that preserves everyday scenes, personalities, and turning points from early Los Angeles. That book helped secure his reputation not just as a businessman and philanthropist, but also as an important recorder of California history.

Accounts of his life also link him to the development of communities including Montebello and to major local institutions and public efforts during Los Angeles’s growth. He died in 1916, leaving behind a legacy tied both to the building of the city and to the stories that explain how it changed.