Sacramento County
Biographies
JOHN LEONARD NILSSON
J. LEONARD NILSSON.--A poultry fancier, particularly well acquainted with Sacramento County conditions affecting the raising of high-grade fowls, is J. Leonard Nilsson, the proprietor of the Stirling Farm, near Sacramento. He was born in Sweden, on September 3, 1877, the son of L. C. and Charlotte Nilsson, and often heard his parents tell how they came to San Francisco, when he was five years old, spent a year there, and then moved to Redding. They were thus pioneers at a period when an immense amount of the settlers' work still remained to be done; and as such they deserve, and doubtless always will receive, all credit and honor.
Leonard Nilsson was fortunate in going through both the grammar and the high schools and then in taking up stock-raising under the guidance of his experienced father. He kept at that until he came to Sacramento, when he bought, on January 5, 1910, this place of thirty acres so favorable to his poultry enterprise, where he started with a few chickens, and steadily made improvements. He now has 12,000 laying hens, having only recently again increased his complete and model plant. He also has gone into, and been successful with the hatching of chickens, shipping one-day chicks to several Eastern states, and thus turning out, the past year, about 150,000 of the feathery dots. He produces all the eggs he undertakes to have hatched, is fortunate in having orders in advance, and calls to his aid no less than eight employees. He has built commodious and modern homes for his help as well as a model bunk house, and by kind treatment and generous compensation succeeds in keeping his well-trained help permanently. He has, in short, the largest plant north of Petaluma.
Mr. Nilsson, in 1904, married Miss Jennie Palm, a native of Illinois who had become a social favorite in Sacramento. He belongs to the Moose, and he is a Republican.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Reed, G.
Walter, History of Sacramento County,
California With Biographical Sketches, Page 763. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA.
1923.
© 2007 Jeanne Taylor.