Golden Sheaf Bakery Annex
Berkeley, Alameda County, California
Marker Inscription
CITY OF BERKELEY LANDMARK designated in 1978. GOLDEN SHEAF BAKERY ANNEX. Clinton Day, Architect, 1905. Jim Novosel, Architect, 2000. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1877, English immigrant John G. Wright founded the Golden Sheaf, Berkeley’s first wholesale/retail bakery. The original bakery, with a public dining room, stood around the corner on Shattuck Avenue. Bakers lived in an on-site dormitory and university students boarded in rooms upstairs. The business grew into the region’s largest bakery, and this annex was constructed to house its fleet of horse-drawn delivery wagons. Wright helped form a bakers’ union in 1904, and provided a meeting place here for groups advocating temperance and women’s suffrage. In 1906 the bakery produced thousands of loaves of bread to feed refuges from the San Francisco Earthquake. The bakery business was sold to Wonderbread in 1909 and was moved from this site. In 2000, developer Avi Nevo renovated and restored the building. He then donated it to the adjacent Berkeley Repertory Theater to house its children’s education center. The brick facade still features the Golden Sheaf name and symbol in terra-cotta relief. Berkeley Historical Plaque Project 2001
Erected by Berkeley Historical Plaque Project
The Story
English immigrant John G. Wright founded the Golden Sheaf, Berkeley's first wholesale and retail bakery, in 1877; this 1905 annex was built to shelter its fleet of horse-drawn delivery wagons. Wright helped organize a bakers' union in 1904 and opened the building as a meeting place for temperance and women's suffrage advocates. After the 1906 earthquake the bakery turned out thousands of loaves for San Francisco's refugees before the business was sold to Wonder Bread in 1909.
Why it matters
A neighborhood bakery sat at the crossroads of Progressive-era America — immigrant enterprise, organized labor, women's suffrage, and disaster relief all passed through its doors.
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Related people
- · John G. Wright
- · Clinton Day
Related events
- · 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
Themes & tags
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