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1001 Stagnaros
By Geoffrey Dunn
One of Robert "Big Boy" Stagnaro's earliest childhood memories is of a small hole next to his father's fish market on the
Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf. Through it he could see the sparkling blue and green waters of Monterey Bay and a patch
of weathered wharf pilings covered with mussels, barnacles, starfish and long clumps of seaweed swaying with the tides.
"My life began at the edge of that hole," says Big Boy, the magic of the memory lingering in his eyes.
Big Boy was four years old then, and his father had cut out the hole so that his youngest son could fish through it while
the rest of the family carried out the duties of running a fish business. "He made sure it was small enough so that I
couldn't fall in," Big Boy remembers, "but it was large enough for me to pull fish up. And believe me, I used to catch a lot
of fish through that hole."
A few years later, Big Boy was set loose from his tiny fishing grounds and given free reign of the entire wharf. He would
scamper from fishing boat to fishing boat, listening to the old Italian fishermen speak in their native dialects about the
day's weather and their catches.
Whenever he got into trouble with one of the fishermen, Big Boy would hurry off to an old Model T truck parked across
the street from the wharf's fish houses. Inside was his grandfather, Cottardo Peter Stagnaro I, who had a special
fondness for his last grandson, given the name Big Boy at birth because he had weighed only one pound and had nearly
died in a pool of blood.
Cottardo I was in his seventies and permanently injured, the victim of a boating accident years earlier, but there was still
a fierceness to his presence as he watched the final days of his life through the windshield of the fish truck.
"I was his pet. Nobody could touch me when I was with him," says Big Boy. "He couldn't walk anymore, but he seemed
somehow larger than life. I always knew that as long as I was with him, I was safe. Nobody—and I mean nobody—ever
crossed him."
The man nobody ever crossed was born in Riva Trigoso, Italy in 1859. By the time he was 10, he was a veteran seaman
on merchant ships sailing along the Mediterranean Coast. By the time he was 15, he had crossed the Atlantic three
times. In 1874, while his vessel was unloading cargo on the old Santa Cruz Railroad Wharf, he jumped ship and decided
to call Santa Cruz his new home.
The young sailor had four sisters in Riva Trigoso, and in the ensuing decades he traveled back and forth between Italy
and America, eventually bringing three of his sisters, their husbands and nearly 60 other families from Riva to the west
side banks of Santa Cruz. For over 40 years, "La Barranca," as it was called, hosted a thriving Italian fishing colony—and
Cottardo I was the recognized patriarch.
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�Maria Zolezzi Stagnaro, Cottardo's wife, immigrated to the United States in 1898, bringing along with her an adolescent
son, Cottardo II. In 1900, at the family home on Bay Street, she gave birth to another son, Malio, and a waterfront
dynasty was born.
In the next half-century, Cottardo I and II, Malio and Cottardo II's children fashioned a mini-wharf empire, the C.
Stagnaro Fishing Corporation, which would come to include two restaurants, coffee shops, a dozen fishing vessels, three
speed boats, a fish market and a marine fuel station.
"There were so many of us," says Big Boy, "we had to expand. We didn't have any choice. During the Depression, our
business actually grew because of all the hard work we put into it and all the hungry mouths we had to feed. That's
when the family got the nickname the '1001 Stagnaros.'
"The wharf was always exciting back then," he emphasizes. "I couldn't wait for the school bell to ring so that I could go
down there and work. I lived for that every day.
"The amount of fish brought in when I was young was incredible. Tons of salmon, sea bass, rock cod, sole and sable fish.
There were 75 to 100 boats unloading their catches on any given day, and as soon as the boats were emptied, the men
were back at work mending their nets and baiting their lines."
When it was built in 1914, the cast side of the wharf was lined with a series of davits, small hand cranes that hoisted the
fishing fleet to the dock whenever rough weather was imminent. The building of the small craft harbor in the 1960s
brought about the demise of the davits and their departure changed the wharf forever. "The wharf lost its color then,"
says Big Boy. "We'll never bring those days back."
Big Boy is not the only Stagnaro nostalgic about the wharf's colorful past. If her younger brother's first memories are of
fishing, Gilda Stagnaro's are of truck rides with her Uncle Malio and five-cent ice cream cones. "I remember my father
buying us ice cream and of listening to the beautiful Italian language of the fishermen," she reminisces. "It was music to
my ears, like a serenade or an aria all the time."
While Big Boy and the rest of her brothers worked daily on the boats and in the fish market, Gilda's initial destiny
appeared to be far away from the wharf. She was an honors student in languages at Santa Cruz High and had dreams of
serving in the diplomatic corps as a translator. Her first job was with the Chamber of Commerce in 1941, but by the end
of World War II she was back working full time at the wharf with the rest of her family.
"I filled in everywhere at first—in the coffee shop, the market, handling fish and game tags," she says smiling. "But after
a while, I wound up running the coffee shop. You might say I found my niche."
In 1972 the Stagnaros renovated their Sports Fishers Coffee Shop into a full, 134-seat seafood restaurant--Gilda's--and
the lady after whom the restaurant was named found herself putting in 18-hour-and-over days, but never time to marry.
"I ran myself pretty hard," she acknowledges in a characteristic understatement, "but the family needed me, so I was
there."
In the 1980s, Gilda's restaurant is the last remaining holding of the original C. Stagnaro Corporation. A series of family
deaths, the decline of the local fisheries and difficult business conditions all contributed to the family releasing itself
from its various enterprises. Only Big Boy, Gilda, and Big Boy's children, Dino (recently brought in as a manager) and
Laura, remain working in the family enterprise.
"It gets harder and harder each year to make it," declares Big Boy. "Increase in food and labor costs, insurance and rents
have all added to our problems. Plus, with all the new businesses on the wharf, parking isn't adequate out here during
peak periods. We don't get the kind of overflow crowds in the restaurant as often as we used to."
According to Gilda, the city-sponsored expansion on the wharf has been a mixed blessing.
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�"I feel we were ready for a facelift, but there was a lack of forethought in respect to business conditions. The increase in
the number of businesses—with all their additional employees, never mind their customers—greatly exceeds the
increase in parking."
In spite of the business demands placed upon them by the modern era, the Stagnaros still manage to bring a little of the
cherished old days into their restaurant.
"We don't know everyone like we used to," says Gilda, "but our forte here is still the personal touch.
"You know, this hustle-and-bustle today never stops me from recognizing how fortunate we are to live here in Santa
Cruz. I always take time to look out the windows and marvel at the sunsets. I used to want to go out and see the world,
but now the world comes to me. Visitors from all over the globe walk in each day, and we always try to make them feel
at home."
Indeed, it is a lot like the old days, and even if her spaghetti sauce isn't quite as good as her mother's used to be, her
smile is just as warm, and the lines around her and her brother's eyes have such rich stories to tell.
Sources
This article is a chapter from: Santa Cruz is in the Heart, by Geoffrey Dunn. Capitola Book Company. Copyright
1985 Geoffrey Dunn. Reproduced with the permission of the author.
The content of this article is the responsibility of the individual author. It is the Library's intent to provide accurate local history
information. However, it is not possible for the Library to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a
variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in a local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation,
please contact the Webmaster.
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AR-073
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1001 Stagnaros
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Dunn, Geoffrey
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This article is a chapter from: <i>Santa Cruz is in the Heart</i>, by Geoffrey Dunn. Capitola Book Company, 1985.
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Santa Cruz Public Libraries
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1985
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En
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Copyright 1985 Geoffrey Dunn. Reproduced with the permission of the author.
Subject
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Stagnaro Family
Italian American Community
Fish and Fishing
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Santa Cruz (City)
Biography
Business
Industries
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Local News Index
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An index to newspaper and periodical articles from a variety of Santa Cruz publications.
It is a collection of over 87,000 articles, primarily from the <em>Santa Cruz Sentinel</em>, that have been clipped and filed in subject folders. While these articles of local interest range in date from the early 1900's to the present, most of the collection and clipped articles are after roughly 1960. There is an ongoing project to scan the complete articles and include them in this collection.<br /><br />Also included are more than 350 full-text local newspaper articles on films and movie-making and on the Japanese-American internment.<br /><br /> In addition, this is an online index for births, deaths, and personal names from <em>The Mountain Echo.</em> The complete print index is available at the library. For more information see <a href="https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/show/134957#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0">The Mountain Echo</a>.
Most of the indexed articles are available on microfilm in the Californiana Room or in the clipping files in the Local History Room at the Downtown branch. Copies of individual articles may be available by contacting the Reference Department - <a href="https://www.santacruzpl.org/contact/">Ask Us.<br /><br /></a>
<p></p>
While there is some overlap between this index and <a href="https://www.santacruzpl.org/historic_newspaper_index/">the Historic Newspaper Index</a><a> (approximately 1856-1960), they are different databases and are searched separately.</a>
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Wharf dreams: Stagnaro Bros. Restaurant and Seafood Enterprises celebrates 80 years on the Santa Cruz Waterfront
Creator
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Dunn, Geoffrey
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Santa Cruz Style v6 n1: 60-63
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Santa Cruz Public Libraries
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2017-Spring
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En
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ARTICLE
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SCS-V6N1-60
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Santa Cruz (City)
1930s
2010s
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Reproduced by permission of Santa Cruz Style Magazine LLC.
Subject
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Restaurants
Stagnaro Bros. Restaurant
Stagnaro Family
Municipal Wharf
Fish and Fishing
Business
Industries
Wharves and Harbors