Adolph Claus J. Spreckels[notes 1] (July 9, 1828 – December 26, 1908) was a German-born major industrialist in both San Francisco, and Hawai'i during the kingdom, republican, and territorial periods of the islands' history.

After the bad harvests of 1845 and 1846, the resulting inflation and hunger crisis reached its peak in 1847; Spreckels emigrated to the USA in 1848 at the age of 19.

[2] In 1852, he married his childhood sweetheart, Anna Christina Mangels (September 4, 1830 in Ankelohe, Kingdom of Hanover, Germany – February 15, 1910, San Francisco, California), who had immigrated to New York City with her brother three years earlier.

They had 13 children, five of whom lived to maturity: sons John Diedrich (1853–1926), Adolph Bernard (1857–1924), Claus August (1858–1946), and Rudolph (1872–1958); and daughter, Emma Claudina (1870–1924), who married Watson Ferris Hutton.

Within a short time, they moved to New York City, then in 1856 relocated to San Francisco, where Spreckels began a brewery.

He induced others in the area to plant sugar beets, as well, and built a small refinery in nearby Capitola in 1874, where it operated for five years.

The town and the sugar factory were important in the early life of novelist John Steinbeck, and several scenes from his novels take place there.

The railroad built a line that competed with the Southern Pacific through the San Joaquin Valley between Richmond and Bakersfield.

By 1892, Spreckelsville was the largest sugarcane plantation in the world[10] and employed thousands of immigrant farm laborers from Japan,[11] Korea,[12] China,[13] and other countries.

Spreckels' conservative, pro-monarchy slant caused him to fall from favor in the business community, and he eventually sold the newspaper.

Men Say They Were Kidnapped for the Spreckles Sugar Plantation--Closely Guarded Train, which ran on December 7, 1900, stated: Two Tourist sleeping cars, into which were packed 194 natives of Porto Rico--men, women, and children--arrived on the Southern Pacific Railway to-day from New Orleans, and stopped here [El Paso, TX] a few hours.

To avoid affording them any opportunity for escape, the agents had the cars sidetracked at a way station in the great desert, 300 miles east of this point, and remained there three days, so as to reach San Francisco in time to make perct connections with the ship.

Hawaiian Islands, to be worked on his sugar plantation.On July 9, 1893, Spreckels found a death threat graffitied on his house.

[citation needed] Spreckels died on December 26, 1908, in San Francisco, and was buried at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park, Colma.