Jacobs Brothers Papers

This collection contains the papers of bankers and businessmen Barron Jacobs (1843-1936) and Lionel Jacobs (1841-1922) of Tucson and Tombstone, Arizona, and their family. The collection is divided into the following series: correspondence, financial documents, and ephemera.

The correspondence series contains 961 letters and is organized alphabetically by author. The series consists of a large number of letters written to the Jacobs brothers and their mercantile and banking operations. The collection includes letters from individual customers and businesses regarding their accounts, letters from other banking institutions regarding customers, and letters from suppliers and shippers regarding the mercantile business. The correspondence also includes a significant number of letters written within the Jacobs family. There are number of early letters from Mark Jacobs to his wife, Hannah, as well as a few written to his sons, Lionel and Barron. There are also quite a few letters written by Lionel to Barron as well as a few from their youngest brother, Albert, and a number from their sisters and brothers-in-law.

The financial documents series contains 2,191 documents, sorted and alphabetized by type and then by institution or organization. The bulk of financial documents consist of processed checks, collection and returns forms, and receipt postal cards. The financial documents also include account books, balance sheets, bills, inventory lists, order forms, protest cards, receipts, and tax receipts. These documents reflect both the mercantile and banking enterprises of the Jacobs family including L. M. Jacobs and Company, Pima County Bank, Agency Pima County Bank, Cochise County Bank, and First National Bank.

The small collection of ephemera contains 32 items and is organized alphabetically by type. The series includes circulars, invitations, labels, and some miscellaneous handwritten notes. Also included are photocopies of two letters about Indian affairs in Arizona in the nineteenth century.

Prominent individuals included in the collection include David Neahr, forwarding agent, Leopold Wolf, San Francisco and New York purchasing agent, the Goldwater family, and Albert Springer, a banking partner, and Isaias W. Hellman of the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Los Angeles.