Restoring an Italian bakery

Hartville bakery oven shows another piece of local history

WHEATLAND —  Resembling a cook house of the Lower Italian Gardens of Mokelumne Hill near Genoa in the “old country,” an old bread bakery in Hartville has had some TLC and a bit of polish by a group of volunteers who wanted to preserve the piece of local history.

The existence of the bakery was unknown until the building covering it was torn down several years ago. Since that time, several people in the town, including native Marian Offe, have wanted to see it restored back to its former glory.

Pulling from some local talent and resources, a group of volunteers have made a presentable display of the bakery oven.

One of the key “local talent” volunteers included Scott Daniels, a man with brickwork experience who wanted to relocate to the area and happened to join the town’s gym. Other volunteers included Vern Yarger, Scott Harmen and Ron Parker.

They still want to finish working on the wrought iron fencing and come up with a design to beautify the bakery mound, but currently it is a nice addition to the town to show another aspect of the town’s colorful past.

The site was under the cover of tarps throughout much of the winter of 2023/2024 so Daniels and crew could restore the brickwork. It was further developed over the past year.

Parker designed and fashioned a Hartville topper to the oven, which he installed on Feb. 27 to make the display a bit more complete.

In an interview with the Record Times, members of the Hartville Museum’s board explained a bit of the town’s history to provide an explanation of the bakery oven’s likely use.

Hartville, as the gateway to the old mining ghost town of Sunrise – one of the oldest white settlements in the state – has a post office that was established in 1883. At one point, there were 13 bars in town, since there was no liquor allowed in the mining town of Sunrise, and the Italians and Greeks who primarily made up the mining workforce in the early days really liked their wine and spirits. So come payday, Hartville was alive with activity.

Many of the Italian immigrants, including Offe’s family (the Testalins) came to the mining town in America because they valued the freedom here.

“The Italians came because the conditions in Europe were so bad, they couldn’t even own land. People also valued and saw the importance of education for their children. It was given free of charge in America,” Offe said, adding, “[The immigrants] also got paid for their work.”

They also did not think the “American” bread was very good and wanted to bake their own.

So obviously, the bakery was a welcome addition to the area, Offe said, basing that on comments from some people from Denver who came to Hartville years ago.

“It was their grandfather’s bakery, and they were immigrants. They told us they (their grandparents) liked their own bread, not the American version, so they made a bakery,” Offe explained.

The bakery that was uncovered matches the description given by the visitors, but because their name and address was not kept, there is no way to contact them to let them know it has been discovered.

“Hartville has a lot of history. If every building could speak…” Offe said, leaving the open-ended comment to the imagination, though there are quite a few stories she or several other townspeople could share if asked.

“There’s something special about Hartville. Everybody is drawn to come back; we have it in our hearts,” she added.

This story was published on March 12, 2025.