Portal:California/Selected biography/6

John Diedrich Spreckels (August 16, 1853–June 7, 1926), the son of American industrialist Claus Spreckels, founded a transportation and real estate empire in San Diego, California in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The oldest of eleven children (only four of whom survived to adulthood), Spreckels was born in Charleston, South Carolina, though the family soon moved to New York and then went on to San Francisco, California, where he was raised. The entrepreneur's many business ventures in the City of San Diego, California which included the Hotel del Coronado and the San Diego and Arizona Railway Company, both of which are credited with helping the City develop into a major commercial center.

Spreckels attended Oakland College and then in Hanover, Germany, where he studied chemistry and mechanical engineering in the Polytechnic College until 1872. He returned to California and began working for his father, Claus Spreckels, who had grown extremely wealthy in the sugar business. In 1876 he went to the Hawaiian Islands, where he worked in his father's sugar business, Spreckels Sugar Company.