Tulare County Biographies

HUGO PETZOLDT

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
        Though of European birth and rearing, Hugo Petzoldt, head of the Dinuba 
Agricultural Works in Dinuba, inventor and manufacturer of a number of ingenious 
and highly practical devices for the extension of the usefulness of farm 
tractors, and recognized as one of the leaders in the general industrial life of 
this section of the state, has been on this side of the Atlantic for twenty-five 
years, a resident of California since 1903, and is thus thoroughly familiar with 
conditions here, particularly with respect to farm needs. A trained and 
practical machinist when he came to this country, a skilled toolmaker and 
patternmaker and an expert worker in iron, Mr. Petzoldt extended his 
acquaintance with the iron industry after his arrival here and in time perfected 
several practical appliances for farm tractors, implements of such use and value 
that a wide market has been created for them. In 1920 he bought a blacksmith 
shop in Dinuba and began the manufacture of these devices, this business since 
having been expanded into the Dinuba Agricultural Works, an industrial concern 
of which he is the head and owner. The success of the implements thus 
manufactured in Dinuba has been heralded abroad and Mr. Petzoldt has had letters 
of inquiry concerning his products from a number of foreign lands, including 
South America, the Philippines, Japan, Cuba, Russia, Egypt and other countries 
where the fame of these products has become known, so that an industry has been 
built up around these inventions in Dinuba which gives much promise of becoming 
one of the important industrial enterprises of the state.
        Hugo Petzoldt was born in the kingdom of Saxony, a state of the German 
empire, February 5, 1872, and was reared in that land, receiving his schooling 
in his home place and becoming early apprenticed to the trade of a blacksmith. 
He served his three years of apprenticeship to this trade, thus becoming 
thoroughly well trained in the art and mystery of working in iron, and then 
served his three years in the German army, after which he started out as a 
journeyman blacksmith, and thus following his trade traveled pretty generally 
throughout Europe, touching at most of the important cities and manufacturing 
centers in Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Holland. In 1900, then being 
twenty-eight years of age, Mr. Petzoldt came to the United States and presently 
went down into Mexico, where he worked at his trade until 1903, when he came to 
California and became employed at his trade in Los Angeles, where he remained 
for some years, and where he took a course in the Polytechnic high-school, 
attending night classes. While in Los Angeles, Mr. Petzoldt added to his 
knowledge of designing and became a recognized expert along that line, some of 
his designs in iron work, particularly with reference to ornamental iron work, 
attracting much attention. The front of the Old Mission theater in San Gabriel 
is of his designing and there are numerous other such samples of his artistic 
craftsmanship.
        In 1916 Mr. Petzoldt came into the San Joaquin valley and was for 
several years located in Reedley, Fresno county. In 1920 he bought a blacksmith 
shop in Dinuba and became permanently located in that city. Extending the plant 
thus acquired by the addition of necessary machinery and equipment, Mr. Petzoldt 
began there the manufacture of the farm tractor devices he had invented and 
patented and has done very well in this line of industry, the products of his 
factory, as noted above, now being sought in a wide market. With the growing 
demand for his products, he is even now contemplating further expansion of his 
facilities for manufacturing, with the expectation of building up in Dinuba an 
industry of large importance.
 
Source:  History of Tulare County and Kings County, California � Kathleen 
Edwards Small & J. Larry Smith, Vol. II, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke Publishing 
Company, 1926. p. 260