Photo courtesy of Anderson Historical Society

Bits and pieces of information on Fred Stoekel and his life in Cottonwood were obtained in our files at the Historical Society. He was born in 1881 in San Francisco and moved to Cottonwood in 1885 with his parents, Charles and Louise.

His father, a German immigrant, was a butcher all his life and ran a very successful meat market in the City before leaving their nice home and moving to Cottonwood. At the time, Cottonwood was described as a great, undeveloped fruit belt and paradise of the West, perhaps the reason his folks sold out and came to Cottonwood.

They purchased acreage west of Cottonwood for a slaughterhouse and opened a butcher shop near their house on Front Street next to the site of the Foster Hotel. The hotel was consumed by fire in 1885.

Stoekel attended Oak Knoll School in Cottonwood for all his schooling, which was a wonderful school. George Butterway, a pioneer land developer from Louisiana, purchased several lots from Central Pacific railroad company and was instrumental in construction of Cottonwood’s Oak Knoll school house, an imposing two-story brick building in 1889.

At the age of 14, Stoekel became a telegraph operator for the Southern Pacific at the Cottonwood depot. Cottonwood at that time was a big shipping center for lumber and cattle. He tapped out messages all day on an old Smith type- writer and kept books for a telegraph office and for the Wells Fargo office which operated out of the depot.

The Post Office and Stoekel’s meat market escaped the fire that destroyed all of Ed. C. Carter’s building in 1902, in addition to two livery stables and the United States Hotel on the south side of Front Street. Carter later rebuilt the building with brick.

In its youth, Cottonwood took pride in the baseball team, which played all the teams up and down the valley and out in the hills. Stoekel pitched for the kids’ team and later was the first baseman for the men’s team.

Cottonwood and the fields around it were a hunter’s paradise. Stoekel was crazy about hunting and fishing and killed lots of game. He fished Battle Creek for trout and Cottonwood Creek where they could catch truck-loads of salmon.

Stoekel became an assistant telegraph agent for Southern Pacific Railroad, which took him to various places in Oregon and California. Following the Earthquake in San Francisco, he returned to Cottonwood. His folks were getting old and he wanted to return home.

The Stoekels purchased a new brick building on Front Street across from their butcher shop. In 1910 Will Rose and Harry Abernathy opened a store there, which later became the Holiday Market.

Within a year Abernathy left the partnership and Stoekel joined W.L. Rose and Company store.

Stoekel and his wife, Fanny, worked for the community interest. They would always be present and involved at any affairs that would benefit the community.