Besides having the first sugar beet factory in Orange County, Los Alamitos also had one if its first dairy farms. The factory went out of business in 1926, but dairys stuck around until the early 1960s.
The first local dairy was owned by Alois (Louis) Denn, a Swiss emigrant who began operating a cheese dairy for the John W. Bixby ranch in the early 1880’s. One of the dairys managed by Denni was located at the present site of Los Alamitos High School, and operated by Alois (later Louis) Denni.
Denni was born in 1858 in Unterladen, Switzerland, the son of Nicolas and Teresa Denni. At the age of 16, he moved to Germany where he spent six years, followed by short stays in Belgium, Holland and finally France before coming to the United States and migrating directly to California. Denni first worked for a San Fernando company, but within a few months he took a job with the John W. Bixby company at Rancho Los Alamitos, apparently starting work right away for Bixby’s new cheese dairy located on the northeast foot of of the Rancho Los Alamitos adobe hillsite. [ref] The Bixby ranch was making cheese as early as January 1881. A ledger entry for Jan. 30, 1881 shows the ranch netted $608.84 in cheese sales.
Whether Denni (and his years of European training) or Bixby was the creative force at the factory is debatable, but the Alamitos cheese son after became a sought-after item in Los Angeles markets. One newspaper reporter noted it as a “gilt-edged article that sells ready at gilt-edged price.” [ref] Rancho Los Alamitos archives, local newspaper account.[/ref]
Whatever the case Denni’s rise in John Bixby’s dairy operations was rapid, as he was eventually promoted to the position of foreman. Upon Bixby’s death (and the division of his property among his co-owners) Denni continued to manage a dairy for the J. Bixby Company, (half-owned by Jotham Bixby and half by the larger concern of Flint, Bixby and Company owned by cousins Lewellyn Bixby and Thomas Flint.)
Louis Denni’s success is also shown by his purchase of a lot in the Alamitos Beach Township in the late 1880s. He apparently later leased land from the J. Bixby Company and opened a dairy factory near Signal Hill. This was called Dairy No. 1. He later leased more land and opened another dairy on land where Los Alamitos High School now stands. At the time it was just grassland but within a few years the new town of Los Alamitos and its massive sugar factory would be built just south across Cerritos Avenue. This dairy was called Dairy No. 2, and was used to milk 300 head of cattle.
Former Orange County Supervisor, Tom Talbert, who operated a dairy farm in the Cerritos Colony north of Long Beach from 1891 through 1897, recalled that after making all his daily milk deliveries, any surplus milk they had was taken to either the Mitchell Creamery in Clearwater (now Paramount) , or Denni’s cheese dairy operated “near Los Alamitos.” Talbert, recalled that while making the run to the cheese factory, they would carry a rifle to “pop coyotes on the way, well aware that we could not kill one, but delighted to see them jump in the air, plow the dust and hit for the brush, when the bullets sang around them. [ref]Thomas Talbert, My Sixty Years in California, p.15[/ref]
Denni started his own dairy business in 1898, purchasing 40 acres of land. He later added another 50 acres. Talbert says between his two dairies, Denni became wealthy from his dairy operations. In 1909 (or 1912) Denni sold his operation to his nephew Job Denni who had migrated from Switzerland 1901. Job Denni first found work at the Sugar Factory, then began working for his uncle Louis “mastering the details of the business,” at Dairy No. 1 in Signal Hill, but “took over his uncle’s interests in 1912 and has since been the successful proprietor of what is known as Dairy No. 2, which by 1920 had been expanded to cover cover 500 acres — probably all of the land bounded by Cerritos, Bloomfield, Ball and Coyote Creek and was “contiguous to the sugar company’s plant.” It was called one of the oldest dairy ranches in Orange County. In addition to dairy ranching, the Dennis also grew large quantities of alfalfa and grain which was fed to the cows , along with the sugar beet pulp from the plant.
In 1902, Louis and Lisette Denni’s sixth child, Joseph Denni, was born. He attended Laurel School in Los Alamitos, a two-story building that was on the corner of Los Alamitos and Katella Boulevards. The teacher was apparently named Mrs. Hopkins. [ref]Joseph Denni, interviewby Los Al HS student reporter David Dickstein in a 1979 article in the Crusader that is filled with good information but also some inaccuracies[/ref]
Denni left the school when he was 7 years old (c.1909) when the family moved to Signal Hill where Louis Denni purchased a lot and built a handsome home which overlooked the Pacific Ocean. “From his window he could see twenty four towns.” When oil was discovered on Signal Hill in 1920, Louis Denni resisted selling out and giving up his treasured home. It was only after the thousands of derricks and the smoke and smell crowded him out, did he finally agree to budge and lease out his land, getting a fifty per cent royalty from thousands of barrels per day. Some reports say he also receioved a bonus of $8,000 per acre for his oil bearing property. At this point the family moved to the Wilmington area where Louis and later Joseph became leading businessmen of that community
The family already had dealings with the community. In 1918 Louis Denni invested in Wilmington Savings and Loan Company. He was listed as Vice-President as late as 1926. In 1929 the Louis Denni family gave $10,000 for the altar in the St. Joseph’s Chapel of the new St. Peters and Paul’s Church in Wilmington.
In the 1930s Talbert says Louis Denni he was able to finance and save the Wilmington Building and Loan Association.
Louis Denni died in 1933. [ref] “Passing of a Pioneer.” Los Angeles Saturday Night 13 (May 1933): 10; Referenced in USC Digital Libray http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/search/controller/view/lacbd-m1109.html[/ref]
Joseph Dennis would later became chairman of the Wilmington Savings and Loan Company which his father had helped found and save.
From James Miller Guinn, “Historical and biographical record of southern California”
LOUIS DENNI
Many as are the dairymen in the neighborhood of Los Alamitos, it is doubtful if any of them have a more extended knowledge of their business than has Mr. Denni. He is qualified to speak and act upon the subject as conducted in several European countries, and to draw conclusions from a long experience since coming to California.
The thriftiness which is the common heritage of the Swiss people is inherited by Mr. Denni, and probably accounts for much of his success in life. It is also a universally recognized fact that to them is given a particular aptitude for the making of everything that is excellent in the dairy line, their mountain grazing pastures and cattle having no superiors anywhere. A native of Unterwalden, Switzerland, Mr. Denni was born January 16, 1858, and is a son of Nicholas and Theresa Denni, natives of Switzerland. In his picturesque little country he received the systematic early training and the thorough education accorded the youth of one of the mostprosperous and peaceful cantons in the country. When sixteen years of age his ambitions peered over the high mountain ranges which shut him from the rest of the world, and in search of better fields he started for Germany where he lived for six years. He then spent a short time in Holland and Belgium, and also visited France, all the time making a study of the dairy methods of the different countries. From France in 1884 he immigrated to America, and came direct to California. For several years he found employment on what is known as the Los Alamitos ranch in Los Angeles county, his rise in the dairy department being rapid, as he was eventually promoted to the position of foreman.
In 1898 Mr. Denni began a dairy business for himself, and for the carrying on of his plans owns ninety acres of land, fifty of which are in the home place. It is needless to say that his farm is conducted after the most approved methods, and that the greatest neatness and order prevail. The pleasant little home is made cheerful and bright by Mrs. Denni, formerly Lizzie Hoffman, a native of Germany, and whose marriage occurred in 1891. To Mr. and Mrs. Denni have been born five children.