Domingo Ghirardelli

Domenico Ghirardelli, known as Domingo, was an Italian confectioner whom news of the gold strike at Sutter's Mill brought to California in 1849. He sold goods in the gold rush towns and in San Francisco, and in 1852 he founded the company that still bears his name, the third oldest chocolate company in the United States.

The company later moved its chocolate making into the brick factory buildings on the waterfront. In the early 1960s the company was sold and the block was put up for sale; William Roth and his mother bought it in 1962 to save it from being replaced by apartments, and in 1964 it reopened as Ghirardelli Square, among the first old factories in America turned into shops and courtyards. The chocolate making moved out to San Leandro a few years later. On our San Francisco walk, look up at the big illuminated sign on the roof, then walk down to the water for the view across to Alcatraz.