Wealthy eccentrics

Sometimes the rich are a little different.

Lillie Hitchcock Coit, 1843-1929
Lillie Hitchcock Coit, 1843-1929
Born to an army doctor who struck it rich in California during the Gold Rush era, Coit's signature moment came as a young woman, when she joined local firefighters hauling an engine up one of San Francisco's steep hills. She became the mascot of Knickerbocker Company #5, which gave her a gold badge she wore proudly.

Known to wear pants and smoke cigars, she would dress like a man in order to get into the gambling halls she favored. Perhaps not altogether surprisingly, her marriage to Howard Coit, a businessman, was brief. When she died, Coit left a third of her estate to the city to build something. That something became Coit Tower.

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.