 In 1863 he voyaged to San Francisco via the Panama Isthmus, soon prospecting for minerals in Arizona and New Mexico.He entered Los Angeles afterward, penniless, but found employment as a clerk in a hotel first named the Lafayette, then the Cosmopolitan and finally the St. Elmo Hotel.At that time it was owned by Kohl, Dockwiler and Fluhe, but later it became the property of Hammel and Denker.