Gilroy’s strategic location contributed to great economic growth beginning in the 1850s. By 1870 James Culp was a tobacco grower and owned a cigar factory that rolled and shipped over one million cigars monthly around the world, while Adam May’s tobacco store did a lively business downtown. Amos Robinson found greater success with the Robinson Hardware store than in his search for gold, specializing in well drilling, sheet metal, dairy, and hardware supplies. The Gilroy Brewery was established in 1868 by German immigrant Adam Riehl and his partner Jacob Reither and became a favorite gathering place. In the 1870s Whitehurst and Hodges purchased lumber holdings in the redwoods west of Gilroy, where oxen pulled heavy logs from where they were felled to the sawmill. A local bank founded in 1871 by Thomas Rea later became Bank of Italy and finally Bank of America, serving as the main lending institution and playing an integral part in Gilroy’s growth. City residents from San Francisco and surrounding areas traveled to the Gilroy Hot Springs Resort by livery stage and later motorized vehicles. Gilroy’s first newspaper, the Gilroy Advocate, began in 1868, followed by the Gilroy Gazette and the Gilroy Dispatch. The railroad reached Gilroy in 1869, enabling farmers to get their products to market. Sunsweet Growers, established in 1917, was a cooperative of local growers formed to dry and market their products. F and P Cannery, Filice and Perrelli, was another important mainstay of the community and employed many residents to process local fruits and vegetables. In the late 1930s Gentry was founded as a dehydration plant, and before World War Two the U.S. Government funded a larger plant and awarded contracts for dried fruits and vegetables for the Army. Later, Gilroy Foods was founded by local investors as a second dehydrating company, and Gentry ultimately merged with Gilroy Foods. From the 1930s to the 1950s, BeGe company made hydraulic pumps for the Caterpillar Corporation, selling heavy equipment worldwide.