Adolph Heinrich Joseph Sutro (April 29, 1830 – August 8, 1898) was a German-American engineer, politician and philanthropist who served as the 24th mayor of San Francisco from 1895 until 1897.

[7] In 1860, Sutro left San Francisco for Virginia City, Nevada after silver was found in the Comstock Lode with plans to continue selling cigars.

[10] The tunnel was completed in 1878 and made Sutro "the King of Comstock" because it could drain four million gallons of water daily[11] and was rented by mine owners at an average of $10,000 a day.

Sutro's wealth was increased by large real estate investments in San Francisco, where he became an entrepreneur and public figure after returning from the Comstock in 1879.

Other lands were rented to the big Italian families that developed large agriculture operations and provided the Colombo Market with daily fresh picks.

Though the Baths were not opened until 1896, Sutro had been developing and marketing the project for years, attempting four separate times to insulate the site from waves using sea walls, the first three of which collapsed into the Pacific Ocean.

Great throngs of San Franciscans arrived on steam trains, bicycles, carts and horse wagons on Sunday excursions.

In 1894, Sutro, in preparation for the opening of the Cliff House, bought a large part of the collection of Woodward's Gardens, a combination zoo, amusement park, aquarium, and art gallery which had closed in 1891.

[13] The Baths were saltwater and springwater pools, heated to varying degrees, and surrounded by a concert hall and museums stocked with treasures that Sutro had collected in his travels and from Woodward's Gardens.

This popularity was partly due to the low entry fee for visiting the Baths and riding the excursion railroad he built to reach them.

Sutro managed a great increase in the value of his outlying land investments as a direct result of the development burst that his vacationers' railroad spawned.

Sutro's reputation as a provider of diversions and culture for the average person led the politically weak and radical Populist Party to draft him to run for mayor on their ticket.

According to historian Alexander Saxton: Sutro was not exactly a Populist, but he was enormously popular, and especially with workingmen since he was thought to have defended the honest miner of the Comstock against the "interests."

More recently he had served San Francisco as philanthropist on the grand scale and especially had endeared himself by fighting the Southern Pacific's grip on the city streetcar system.

[15]Sutro was quickly considered a failed mayor, ill-suited for political work, and did not provide any popularity boost to the Populist party.