A Very Brief History of French Bakeries in Old Los Angeles

Once upon a time, a long long time ago by Los Angeles standards, the city was just a tiny pueblo that lacked a proper bakery.

You might assume that the first bakeries in Los Angeles specialized in Mexican baked goods. You would, however, be mistaken. For LA's first 72 years of existence, the ONLY bread baked in the city was French bread.

In those very early days, Andre Mano and Pierre Domegue set up shop in the Plaza area, baking French sourdough around the corner from the Plaza Church. 

Andre Mano was born in France around 1809, is listed in the 1850 Federal census as a baker, and shared a house with 28-year-old Pedro Dornes (or Domec), a cooper who was also from France. Ten years later, the 1860 census still listed Andre as a baker, with another French housemate, laborer Martin Echepare.

Little seems to be known about Pierre Domegue, except that he was married to, and also baked bread with, a Native American woman whose name and nation aren't mentioned in the few sources I've found. 

Joseph Lelong, who set up shop in 1851, inexplicably named his French bakery after Swedish opera superstar Jenny Lind. There was a Lelong Block on Spring, south of Fifth, at least as late as 1890. If Lelong did indeed own property on that block (tax assessments suggest he had assets), he would have counted two other French bakers (Augustus Ulyard and Louis Mesmer) and a French grocer (Auguste Chauvin) as his neighbors. 

Lelong was the busiest baker in town...for a couple of years, anyway. He faced strong competition when Augustus Ulyard arrived in 1853. Ulyard, born in Philadelphia to French parents, started out with French bread, but soon added German and American breads and pastries, appealing to the growing Yankee and German communities. Ulyard added fresh crackers in 1860, filling another market gap (crackers shipped from San Bernardino or San Francisco tended to arrive stale). The former site of his bakery is now home to the Alexandria Hotel.

Ulyard eventually retired from baking, selling his bakery to Louis Mesmer. 

As Louis Mesmer merits his own entry, I'll restrict this to his activities as a baker. 

Besides the former Ulyard bakery, Louis Mesmer owned the New York Bakery at Sixth and Spring (the very first Ralphs Bros. Grocery stood next door). Mesmer, a devout Catholic, was the first baker in Los Angeles to bake matzo for the local Jewish community.

Los Angeles gained an army camp in 1861 in case local Confederate sympathizers revolted (Southern California had a lot of ex-Southern residents, and Los Angeles in particular leaned Confederate during the Civil War). An army marches on its stomach, and Camp Latham needed baked goods. Louis Mesmer got the contract, and erected a bakery at the camp along Ballona Creek (he also sold baked goods to neighboring rancheros). He was still operating the New York Bakery downtown. When Camp Latham moved to Highland Park, he supplied baked goods from the New York Bakery instead of building another bakery location.

Sometime around 1870, the Taix family arrived in Los Angeles. The Taix French Bread Bakery opened its doors in 1882 at 321 Commercial Street. Later, Adrian and Joaquin Taix owned The French Bakery at 1550 West Pico Boulevard. When the family tore down their bakery in 1912 to build the Champ d'Or Hotel (which would house the original Taix restaurant beginning in 1927), the Taix bakery moved, ending up in Northeast Los Angeles.

Dominique Foix, born in Haut-Garonne, arrived in 1882. He established a tannery and saddlery in his Macy Street home, later founding Foix French Baking Company downtown in 1886 and delivering bread door to door with a horse-drawn wagon. Foix often traded goods with customers who were short on cash, and received so many live frogs as payments that he was able to start a frog farm and sell frogs' legs to the many French restaurants in town. This led to Foix supplying bread to restaurants, which necessitated moving the bakery into a bigger facility in Highland Park. The bakery's flour came from Capitol Mills, housed in the oldest industrial building in the city - a three-story brick flour mill erected by Abel Stearns in 1831.

Foix turned over the bakery to his son in his later years, and Foix's grandsons were running the bakery at least as late as 1941. That same year, a broken water main below Elysian Park's reservoir flooded the bakery. Louis Foix evacuated all 15 employees, but the water and mud ruined 6000 pounds of flour. The bakery unfortunately seems to have closed down in the 1990s.

French Basque immigrant Jean-Baptiste Garacochea founded the National French Bakery in 1908, later changing the name to Pioneer French Baking Company. Pioneer operated in Venice from 1920 to 2006, operated by several generations of the Garacochea family. Great-grandsons John Baptiste and Charlie Garacochea co-own the Etxea Basque Bakery, which supplies bread to restaurants.

To hell with counting carbs - good French bread is an LA tradition! Pass the sourdough.

Forgotten French Dairies of Los Angeles County

Recently, Broguiere's Dairy in Montebello (founded by a French immigrant in 1920; still family-owned 99 years later) announced plans to close.

I have sent Broguiere's an interview request and hope they'll have the time and inclination to talk to me (closing down a business is more work than most people realize). In the meantime, let's explore LA County's other French-founded, long-forgotten dairies. (I'm sure I don't need to remind my readers that French cuisine is butter-based, and living in then-remote Southern California didn't necessarily change French Angelenos' culinary preferences all that much.)

Much of the information about these dairies is lost to history; I'm afraid I won't be able to offer as much information as I prefer.

Augustus Ulyard is known to have established a dairy in Cahuenga (somewhere in the Valley) after retiring from baking.

Paul J.M. Molle is known to have been in the dairy business, and likely rented land on Rancho Topanga Malibu Sequit for that very purpose (yup...it's quite possible there were once dairy cows in Malibu).

Jean Sentous' dairy farm stood in the block bordered by Washington, Grand, 21st, and Main (this piece of land would later become Chutes Park). His cattle brand is now in the permanent collection of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

Francois Pellissier, known for the Pellissier Dairy and Alpine Dairy (he also co-founded the Highland Union Dairy), raised his dairy cows on a ranch straddling Whittier and City of Industry. The family farmhouse stood on Workman Mill Road in what is now Industry, but much of modern-day Whittier was originally the Pellissier family's sizable dairy.

The Didier family also raised dairy cows in the City of Industry area (the Homestead Museum has a surviving Didier Dairy milk bottle in its permanent collection, although it's not on public display).

We're known for LA's earliest commercial wine production. Apparently, we made at least some of the cheese that went with it, too.

Bread, Crackers, and Augustus Ulyard

On New Year's Eve, 1852, a French American and his English wife arrived in Los Angeles.

Augustus Ulyard, born in Philadelphia to French immigrant parents, was a baker by trade. The Ulyards rented a house near the Plaza and set up a bakery, using yeast Mary Field Ulyard had brought with her from Missouri. There were other bakers in town*, chief amongst them Joseph Lelong and his Jenny Lind Bakery**.

The only bread baked in Los Angeles until 1853 was French bread. Which should surprise no one, since all the bakers in town were French.

Of course, by 1853, increasing numbers of Germans and Yankees had moved to Los Angeles. Ulyard - the first baker in Los Angeles to diversify his wares - soon added German and American varieties of bread and cake, which proved very popular.

An advertisement in the Los Angeles Star (November 12, 1853) stated "...I am prepared to furnish individuals or parties with Pastry, Pies, Cakes, Bread, etc. at short notice, and of a better quality than can be obtained at any other establishment in this town...".

Ulyard moved his bakery to the southwest corner of Main and First Streets. He was successful enough to make some real estate purchases - including the southwest corner of Fifth and Spring Streets. The Alexandria Hotel has stood on the site since 1906.

In early Los Angeles, food often arrived in poor condition because it took so long to arrive from suppliers in San Bernardino or San Francisco (and anything coming from San Bernardino could be spoiled by the desert heat). Crackers in particular tended to arrive stale. Late in 1860, Ulyard began to advertise "fresh crackers, baked in Los Angeles, and superior to those half spoiled by the sea voyage."

Ulyard eventually sold the bakery to Louis Mesmer, established a dairy in Cahuenga, and went into the grocery business. He was a member of the Odd Fellows' Golden Rule Lodge, a member of the Common Council, and helped to organize California's first Republican League, supporting John C. Frémont's presidential bid (Frémont ultimately lost the nomination to Abraham Lincoln).

The Ulyards had no biological children, but they did adopt seven homeless children over the years. The youngest, Sarah Nelson, was just starting high school when Augustus retired from baking at age 63.

Augustus Ulyard died in 1900 at age 83. Mary died the following year. The Ulyards are buried at Angelus Rosedale.

*Ulyard's obituary in the Los Angeles Herald claimed he was Los Angeles' first baker. He was not - at minimum, Lelong had already been in business for at least a couple of years.

**Don't ask me why Lelong named a French bakery after a Swedish opera star. I have no idea.