California Biographies

Source: History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of 
the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with 
its growth and development from the early days to the present (1919)

History By Paul E. Vandor 
Illustrated, Complete In Two Volumes 
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1919
 
Notes: Missing+page1185-1186

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

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


FELIX HEINZER.� If Barstow Colony has a better hustler than Felix 
Heinzer, prince of good fellows and an expert dairyman, then no one has 
yet discovered it, for ever since he came to Fresno County about seven years 
ago, he has demonstrated one after another successful possibility which has 
made even the wide awake folks of Barstow sit up, look and listen. He was 
born in Mutterthal, Canton Schwyz, Switzerland, on March 9, 1876, the son 
of Anton Heinzer, a thrifty farmer of the region who died in 1896. He had 
led to the altar Agatha Gwerder, who proved to him a blessed helpmate, 
and she closed her eyes to this world just ten years later. She was the mother 
of five children, four of whom still live to honor the family name. 

Felix, the third youngest, was brought up a farmer's boy in the high 
Alps, for his father's farm was above the timberland and subject to a mantle 
of deep snow for seven and sometimes eight months of the year. There he 
learned dairying according to true Swiss fashion, and while yet a lad was 
busied with cheese and butter-making. He attended the public schools, never- 
theless, and such was his filial feeling that he remained at home to help his 
parents until his father died. Then the family farm was rented, and Felix 
joined the Swiss army, becoming a non-commissioned officer in Battalion 86 
of the Eighth Division. 

In the fall of 1903, however, having bade good-bye to the scenes so 
familiar and so endearing, Mr. Heinzer came to San Francisco, where he se- 
cured employment in a dairy for a year, after which he moved about a little, 
going first to San Joaquin County, then to Marin County, then to Monterey 
County, back to San Francisco, and then to Sutter County. All this time he 
was engaged in dairying; and as he found nothing to attract him permanently, 
he came back to San Francisco, then went to Ventura County, returned to 
the Bay Metropolis, and next moved to Monterey County again, where he 
was eighteen months in one dairy as butter-maker. After that he went to 
Fruitvale, then to San Mateo County, next to Santa Clara County, then to 
Madera, and four months later � in 1911 � to Fresno. 

Here, for a year and a half, he was in the service of the Big Four Ranch, 
and then he shifted to Coalinga where he leased a dairy for fourteen months. 
He called his business the Coalinga Dairy, and he established a milk route 
for that town. The McKay dairy at Fresno, however, attracted him for nine 
months, then he spent a couple of months at Riverdale, and next was thirteen 
months at Burrel, then to Barstow, where he worked in a dairy for George 
Miller. 

Three years ago Mr. Heinzer rented his present advantageous place of 
eighty acres in Barstow Colony, with an option to purchase. In the spring of 
1919 he took advantage of his option and purchased the property. He is de- 
voting himself to dairying, and on such a scale that he milks some twenty- 
five cows. These are chiefly Holsteiners, and it goes without saying that the 
products of his dairy are only of the highest grade. He was also interested 
in the Cooperative Dairymen's Association, in which he was a director until 
it became a part of the San Joaquin Valley Milk Producers Association, of 
which he is an enthusiastic member. In addition, he is a moving spirit in the 
California Peach Growers, Inc. He is now preparing to set out a Thompson 
seedless vineyard on his ranch. 

Few busy men enjoy life more than does Mr. Heinzer, who is influential 
and ever interesting, and who has won the esteem of many friends. He be- 
longs to the Fraternal Brotherhood at Barstow, to St. Alphonzo's Catholic 
Church at Fresno, and to the Republican party. The latter two organizations 
in particular afford Mr. Heinzer abundant opportunity for the expression 
of his religious and political preferences.