Butte County
Biographies
LORETO
A. PANECALDO
LORETO A. PANECALDO.—Among the merchants who have sustained the enviable reputation of Gridley as a business center and as a place of residence, by fixing and maintaining high standards of those interests of direct importance to the home and the question of rational living, is Loreto A. Panecaldo, the wideawake proprietor of the widely-known Gridley Bakery. Mr. Panecaldo was born in the province of Abruzzi, east of Rome, Italy, June 13, 1883. Leaving the grammar schools, he learned the stone- and brick-mason’s trade, turning aside only to serve the necessary two years in the Italian army. At the same time, that is, during his enlistment, he learned the baker’s trade, and so doubly equipped himself for the momentous step he had decided to take, after he had finished with his military duties.
Early in the year 1905, Mr. Panecaldo sailed from Italy for America, and landed in Boston on March 6. During the summer of the same year he came to California, and for a while located in Kennett, Shasta County, where he followed his baker’s trade. Later, he had an attractive bake-shop of his own at Coram, in the same county. There he remained until August 28, 1911, when he came to Gridley.
Once resolved to cast his fortunes here—and this far-seeing decision has brought to Mr. Panecaldo a small fortune, and to Gridley one of its most enterprising business men—he bought out a small bakery and made many needed improvements, installing a new oven and the most modern machinery, so that now he has as well-equipped an establishment in the bakery line as there is in all Butte County.
When he started in Gridley, he was baking three hundred loaves of bread a day, and now his output is one thousand loaves, and more, daily. He has not only expanded his trade in town, but he sells to Durham, Richvale, Biggs and other towns in the southern part of the county. He has wisely invested his profits in county and town property; he owns a ten-acre bean ranch in the Manzanita district, east of Gridley, and also a half block in Gridley on which is a fine residence.
Mr. Panecaldo was married, in 1913, to Miss Nellie Goulden, and he was made an American citizen—of which fact he is reasonably proud—in Shasta County. He belongs to the Gridley Blue Lodge of Masons, and also to the I. D. E. S., and there, as well as in business circles, enjoys an enviable popularity.
Transcribed by
Marie Hassard 07 December 2009.
Source: "History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C.
Mansfield, Page 1311, Historic Record Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
©
2009 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's
Butte County Biographies