On May 3, 1913, five California entrepreneurs invested $100 apiece to do something that had never been done before: convert the brine available in the nearby salt ponds of San Francisco Bay into bleach using a sophisticated process of electrolysis, thus founding America's first commercial liquid bleach factory, the Electro-Alkaline Company, now known as The Clorox Company. This cleaning agent, derived almost one hundred years ago from a salt pond, is now a cleaning and disinfecting essential used in homes and in disaster relief efforts throughout the world.