Halleck became a wealthy man as a lawyer and land speculator , and a noted collector of " Californiana . " He obtained thousands of pages of official documents on the Spanish missions and colonization of California , which were copied and are now maintained by the Bancroft Library of the University of California , the originals having been destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire . He built the Montgomery Block , San Francisco 's first fireproof building , home to lawyers , businessmen , and later , the city 's Bohemian writers and newspapers . He was a director of the Almaden Quicksilver ( mercury ) Company in San Jose , president of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad , a builder in Monterey , and owner of the 30,000 acre ( 120 km ² ) Rancho Nicasio in Marin County , California . But he remained involved in military affairs and by early 1861 he was a major general of the California Militia
1906 San Francisco earthquake
1906 San Francisco earthquake
Henry Halleck