Butte County
Biographies
FREDERICK FINK
FREDERICK FINK.—A well-known hotel and theater manager who has made good at Gridley, and is today therefore one of the best and most effective boosters of the fast developing town, is Frederick Fink, a native of Lebanon County, Pa., where he was born on March 25, 1862. He attended the public schools, learned the blacksmith’s trade, and when only seventeen years of age began to work at the anvil.
When he became of age, Mr. Fink started away from home to make his fortune in the world. Through the Middle West, and especially in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Colorado, he followed his trade; and, while talking in Colorado to a man who had formerly lived at Gridley, he learned of the attractive features of this section and decided to locate here. He bought a ticket, therefore, direct to the town, and no move in his life has given him more satisfaction.
On arriving in town he secured employment as a blacksmith at good wages, and later he ran a shop of his own. He also conducted a shop for three years in Bangor, Butte County, but selling out he opened a restaurant on Hazel Street and soon added a bakery. At the end of five years Mr. Fink leased the Pacific Hotel, which he named the Hotel Fink, and this he conducted in first-class style for ten years. During that time he leased the Fink Annex, a rooming-house next to the hotel. For several years he has been disconnected with the hotel management, but he still manages the rooming-house on Hazel Street.
Mr. Fink was the first man to conduct a moving picture theater successfully in Gridley. In 1911, he opened a motion picture house on Hazel Street, known as the Hippodrome Theater, and ran the same until January 1, 1915, when he built the beautiful, modern Fink Motion Picture Theater, which has been a success from the start. It is a thoroughly up-to-date structure, with all modern improvements, including steam heat, and shows exclusively all the best attractions from the leading film theaters of America. For two seasons Mr. Fink was a member of the Canner’s Picnic Association of Gridley, and he has always taken the liveliest interest and a prominent part in the affairs of the town. He is a member of the Loyal Order of Moose, at Gridley; also of the Eagles, at Chico. His wife, who was formerly Rosie Hamman, a native of Iowa, in which state they were married, is equally popular, and this esteem and good-will so frequently expressed by their fellow citizens is shared by the one son, Frederick, Jr., who is clerk in the Gridley postoffice.
Transcribed
by Sharon Walford Yost.
Source: "History of
Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages 1223-1224, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2009 Sharon
Walford Yost.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies