Haas was born to a Jewish family[1] in Reckendorf, Kingdom of Bavaria in 1847[2] and immigrated to Portland, Oregon at the age of 16 where he worked at a grocery store founded by his cousins, Charles, Samuel, and Kalman Haas.[3][4][5] He then moved to Los Angeles[6] where he co-founded the retail drug and grocery store, Hellman, Haas & Co. with his brother, Jacob Haas, and partners, Herman W. Hellman (brother of banker Isaias W. Hellman) and Bernard Cohn (later the Mayor of Los Angeles).[6] Using his profits, he founded the first flour milling and cold storage businesses in Los Angeles, the Capital Milling Company,[2] as well as several electricity and gas companies.[6] In the 1880s, Jacob Baruch, married to Haas's niece Jeanette Weiler, and his brother Herman Baruch, also married to a niece, Jeanette Meertief, bought out the other partners and the company changed its name to Haas, Baruch & Co. in 1889.[6] The company pioneered the "cash & carry" concept in Los Angeles (before, clerks would gather the groceries for the customers) and by 1895, benefiting from rapid population growth in the region thanks to the building of the Los Angeles aqueduct, the discovery of oil in Long Beach, and the opening of the Panama Canal, the company had $2 million in sales.[7] Haas became one of the leading philanthropists in the city at the time.[2] He moved to San Francisco in 1900 where he founded Haas Wholesale Grocers and was a director for Wells Fargo Bank, the San Francisco Savings & Loan Company, the California Insurance League, and the Union Sugar Company.[2]
Haas was a benefactor of the Eureka Benevolent Society (later the Jewish Family Service), the Federation of Jewish Charities, and the Pacific Orphans’ Asylum and Home Society.[2]
