Kings County Biographies

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler


This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


M. J. FONTANA
 
In all of our industries, from the railroad builder to the bank president, the 
foreign-born citizen has always displayed excellent qualities, this being 
especially true of some of the sons of Italy who have located here. Among these 
none has made a more striking record in California than M. J. Fontana, general 
superintendent of the California Fruit Canners' Association. He came to America 
when he was quite a young man, determined to make a home and fortune for himself 
in the New World. Having worked in the fruit business in New York, this interest 
was continued in California, whither he came in 1868, arriving in San Francisco 
with very limited means. Today, measure him as you will, he is one of the big 
men of the state, for he has made a success in every sense of the word. For a 
time he worked at anything that his hands found to do, but later he managed to 
form an alliance with fruit men which was the beginning of his upward progress. 
In 1870 he started in the fruit and produce business in San Francisco, and 
afterward engaged in the canning business in the same city, also starting 
branches at Healdsburg and Hanford.
Finally in 1898 he sold out to the California Fruit Canners' Association, an 
organization in which he still holds an interest, being a director and a member 
of the executive board. His Hanford plant was the pioneer fruit canning and 
packing establishment in Kings county and was built in 1895. This plant has 
packed a yearly average of three hundred thousand cases of peaches and dried 
fruits for the past fifteen years, and also handles dried prunes, raisins and 
apricots.
Mr. Fontana has been a large developer in the fields of horticulture and 
viticulture in California for many years. He has large wine interests in the 
state, being president of the Italian-Swiss Wine Colony Association and director 
of the California Wine Association and is general superintendent of the 
California Canners Association, a director in the Italian-American Bank of San 
Francisco and is a director of the E. B. & A. L. Stone Co., a large contracting 
concern which did the construction work on the Western Pacific Railroad from San 
Francisco to Oroville, Cal. For two years he held the office of trustee of the 
city of San Francisco.
In 1877 Mr. Fontana was married to Nellie Jones of San Leandro, Cal., and they 
have three sons and one daughter, all of whom are married and connected with the 
California Fruit Canners' Association.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913
pp.  872-873