Born in San Francisco, Stephen White attended Santa Clara College and read law in the office of Charles Bruce Younger Sr. in Santa Cruz, California and was admitted to the bar in 1874. He came to Los Angeles to practice and served as the Los Angeles County District Attorney from 1882-1884. Before becoming district attorney in 1882, White was a charter member of the first Los Angeles County Bar Association. He was also a member of the California State Senate from 1887-1891, where he served as president pro tempore both sessions, as lieutenant governor (1888), and later represented California for one term in the United States Senate from 1893-1899. He forever endeared himself to the people of Los Angeles for fighting and winning a seven-year struggle to secure a deep-water harbor at San Pedro-forerunner to today’s Port of Los Angeles. He is also well remembered for his extraordinary skill as a criminal defense attorney. When he died in 1901 he was acclaimed in San Francisco and Los Angeles as the state’s “most brilliant genius,” as “perhaps the most eminent of the State’s native sons.”