Domenico Ghirardelli, an Italian native and already apprenticed to a famous Genovese chocolatier by the time he was in his teens. By 1849 he happened to have found his way to California, just in time to join the very start of the gold rush. When he finally moved to San Francisco, in 1852, he then bought a whole city square block, where he then founded his own chocolate business. When the Ghirardelli business became part of Golden Grain Macaroni in the early 1960`s, they then moved the business across the bay and sold the square. To help preserve the architecture treasure, San Francisco native and shipping heir William Roth, and his mother Lurline, then bought the whole Ghirardelli Square. The `Pioneer Woolen Mill` and `D Ghirardelli Company` are now National Registered Historic Places since 1982.
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