Sierra
County
Biographies
ANTONE E. DOTTA
Antone E. Dotta, who is one of the
leading ranchers, dairymen and livestock dealers and an influential citizen of
the Sierra Valley, is president of the Caesar Dotta & Sons Company, Inc.,
which owns about fourteen thousand acres of land. Born on his father’s ranch near Loyalton, on
the 23rd of March, 1889 he is a son of Caesar and Catherine (Valla)
Dotta, who were born in Canton Ticino, Switzerland. They immigrated to California in 1884 and
settled at once in the Sierra Valley.
The paternal grandfather, Antone Dotta, who was a lifelong resident of
Canton Ticino, was a breeder and an exhibitor of prize cattle. A successful drover and stock dealer, he
showed his cattle at fairs and expositions.
Mr. and Mrs. Caesar Dotta were accompanied to America by Raffaele Dotta,
who is a prominent banker, extensive landowner and successful dairy farmer in
the Sierra Valley. The Dotta family was
poor when they came to this locality, but they were hard and persistent
workers, exercised sound judgment in the management of their affairs,
particularly in dairy farming and the handling of livestock, through which they
became wealthy. Antone E. Dotta is the
eldest of six children, the others being Daniel D., Leon, Albert C., Caesar and
Eda, who is the wife of H. G. Smith, a newspaperman at Santa Rosa, this state.
Antone E. Dotta was reared at home
and received his early education in the Island district school, in his home
neighborhood. He prepared for a business
career by a commercial course in the Polytechnic Business College in
Oakland. He also received good practical
training under his father, who was a man of unusually sound judgment in
practical things. He now lives on the
old McNear ranch of five hundred and fifty acres, which he bought in 1920. He is also the owner of the Dotta mountain
ranch of two thousand acres and the Heriot ranch of six hundred and eighty
acres, as well as other lands devoted to pasturage, his holdings aggregating
three thousand five hundred and ten acres.
The Dotta holdings for sound business reasons were combined under the
name of Caesar Dotta & Sons Company, Inc., of which Caesar Dotta was the
president to the time of his death, on July 1, 1929, at which time Antone Dotta
succeeded to the presidency. Besides
Antone Dotta’s individual land holdings, he is the owner of two meat markets in
Portola, Plumas County, which are carried on under the names of the Portola
Meat Company and the Quality Meat Market.
Mr. Dotta’s brother-in-law, Mr. Hamilton, is the manager of these
markets, which have combined sales of about ten thousand dollars a month. Mr. Dotta raises beef cattle extensively and
operates a dairy farm, on which is a herd of sixty milch cows. In addition to his own range, he rents about
a thousand acres of pasture land, and employs three men regularly, two milkers
and one ranch hand. Throughout the
Sierra Valley, the Sacramento Valley and the Honey Lake Valley, Mr. Dotta buys
beef cattle, hogs, poultry and eggs for his own markets, besides which he is an
extensive buyer of cattle, hogs and sheep, which he ships in car-load lots to
the San Francisco market.
On September 10, 1910, at Oakland,
California, Mr. Dotta was united in marriage to Miss Edna F. Hamilton, who was
born in Spokane, Washington, a daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Ed Hamilton,
the former having been a prominent and successful mining man of Nevada in which
state Mrs. Dotta was reared. She was a
granddaughter of the late Colonel Quinn, who also was one of the foremost
mining men of Nevada. Mrs. Dotta’s
mother, Josie (Quinn) Hamilton, died at the home of Mrs. Dotta, November 18,
1929. To Mr. and Mrs. Dotta were born
eleven children, as follows: Emil E.,
who assists his father in the management of the ranches; Agnes C.; Thelma, who
died at the age of six months; Antone E., Jr.; Aileen E.; Elmer, who died at
the age of ten years; Alice, Adella, Anna Marie, Annetta and Donald Theodore.
Mr. Dotta gives his political
support to the Republican Party and stands consistently for the best things in
the life of the community. He was reared
in the faith of the Roman Catholic Church and is a member of the Knights of
Columbus at Reno. He is a man of strong
character and pleasing personality, and is sincere in his social relations, so
that he commands to a marked degree the respect and confidence of the people
among whom he has spent his life.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Wooldridge, J.W.Major History of Sacramento Valley
California, Vol. 3 Pages 315-316. Pioneer Historical
Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010 Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Sierra County
Biographies