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Levi's Flagship Store, Union Square
In 1853 Bavarian immigrant Levi Strauss sailed into San Francisco with bolts of tan canvas that he intended selling for tents and wagon covers. He soon discovered the miners had a more pressing need for rugged pants so he began to create them out of his tough material. Levi's new trousers were a big hit and the people declared them "pert near a miner's best friends." When the tan cloth ran out he substituted blue material and, at the suggestion of a tailor named Jacob Davis, added orange stitching and copper rivets (U.S. patent number 139,121).

By the 1930s cowboys all over the west were wearing Levi Strauss' sturdy and comfortable 'waist overalls'. In the 1940s, Roy Rogers and Gary Cooper wore them in movies and on television, boosting their popularity. Later, a new generation of icons including Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Bob Dylan turned blue jeans into a sign of youth rebellion and eventually a blue jeans became part of Americana.

TRIVIA: Levi Strauss never referred to his trousers as 'denim jeans,' so where come did that term come from? ANSWER

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