Butte County
Biographies
CHARLES
LUTZ
CHARLES LUTZ.—A patriotic American of German birth, who learned his trade in different parts of the country and under different and variously helpful conditions, is Charles Lutz, proprietor of the Golden West Bakery, in Chico, who has traveled and worked in many places, and thus mastered the bakery business, in all of its important details. Born at Herlisheim, in Alsace, on June 13, 1879, he was the son of Joseph Lutz, a cooper and a farmer, who was a Frenchman and took part in the great war of 1871, and who died five years ago. The wife of Joseph Lutz was Rose Gross, who still resides at the old home, the mother of four boys and one girl.
Charles Lutz, the oldest child in the family and the only one who came to America, was brought up on a farm in Alsace, and there attended the public schools. At the early age of sixteen he came to the United States, and to California, whither an uncle, Stephen Kistler, had preceded him four years before. Charles Lutz came by way of New York, and after his arrival in California, stopped for a while in Los Angeles, and then proceeded to his uncle’s home at Anaheim, where he commenced to learn the baker’s trade as an apprentice to his uncle. At the end of eighteen months, he went back to Los Angeles to work in a bakery. Afterwards he removed to Santa Monica, and later to Randsburg; but he did not like it there, and so he returned to Anaheim, where he remained for six months. He then sought work again in Los Angeles, and once more baked bread at Santa Monica. Then he was employed for a while at Pasadena, and afterwards lived again at Los Angeles, after which he went north to San Francisco, and was employed as a baker at San Rafael.
In 1900, Mr. Lutz came to Marysville, and worked at his trade for F. J. Klinger, with whom he continued for twenty-three months; and at Marysville he took the most important step in his life. On April 22, 1902, he married Miss Clara Nance, a native of that town, and the daughter of James M. and Catherine T. (FitzPatrick) Nance who were born in Kentucky and New York City respectively. Mr. Nance came to California across the plains, driving a band of cattle. In time he became a stock dealer at Marysville, where, in June, 1873, he was married; and there he died on July 1, 1898. Mrs. Nance had come to California on the steamer Champion, which ran to Panama, and the steamer St. Louis, plying along the coast, arriving in San Francisco in 1861. She is now living, retired, in Marysville, the mother of five children, among whom the wife of the subject of our sketch is the second youngest.
After Mr. Lutz’s marriage he went to Sacramento, where he was employed at his trade for four months, and then he came back to Marysville and worked in another bakery. He next returned to Sacramento for a couple of years, and then baked for a couple of months at Chico, after which he went to Oakland and San Francisco. He was in the metropolis on April 18, 1906, and passed through all the trying experiences of the earthquake and fire; and three days afterward he was back in Sacramento. Then he went to Red Bluff for half a year, after which he returned to Marysville. After that he worked at Sacramento from January until August, 1907, and on the 10th of that month he located again in Chico.
Mr. Lutz worked at his trade here for a couple of years, and then established himself in business by buying out a little bakery owned by Mr. O’Neil. He began in the Western Hotel building, and made such a success, that in 1912 he bought the lot on which his buildings are now located; and in February, 1913, he moved into his new bakery at 1034 Fifth Street.
Here he has commodious quarters in a shop sixty-six feet wide and one hundred thirty-two feet deep. His bakery is equipped with modern machinery and every needed appliance, including a large oven for the successful making of bake-stuffs. This oven is equipped with a whirlwind burner. In busy seasons he has baked as many as three thousand two hundred loaves a day, not to speak of the output of pies and cakes. In his business he uses one wagon and two automobiles. All in all, Mr. Lutz’s establishment is the largest bakery in the county.
On July 16, 1917, Mr. Lutz was bereaved of his faithful wife. She left him one little daughter, Virginia May. Fraternally, Mr. Lutz is a member of the Eagles and the Woodmen of the World; and in politics, he is a stanch Republican.
Transcribed by
Marie Hassard 06 December 2009.
Source: "History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C.
Mansfield, Pages 1309-1310, Historic Record Co, Los
Angeles, CA, 1918.
©
2009 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's
Butte County Biographies