Question: What is the history of Lauck's Bakery?

-- Andrea Dooley, La Quinta

Answer: Lauck's Bakery was started by George A. Lauck, who built the bakery at 935 E. Olive Ave., at Maroa Avenue, in 1939.

Lauck grew up on a family farm in Monmouth. He got his first baking job at the Golden Crust Bakery in Selma, where he worked for $15 a week. He moved to Fresno when that bakery closed in 1929. In Fresno, he was a baker at Hart's Restaurant on Fulton Street and later for Andella Market at Van Ness and Belmont avenues.

He bought Andella's bakery in 1934 and put up a small hand-lettered sign on the counter: George Lauck, Baker. He took the sign with him when he built the Olive Avenue shop.

Lauck also was a baker for the Navy during World War II. In 1946, after Lauck returned from the war, he built a two-story concrete and steel bakery plant at Tulare and Twelfth streets, where the breads, doughnuts and cookies were made for his Tower District bakery.

In a Bee story, Lauck said he hoped to open the bakery plant as soon as "the current shortages of sugar and other bakery goods ingredients are eased," after wartime rationing.

Lauck built the former Drug Fair building on Van Ness, behind his bakery, in 1962.

By the late 1960s, Lauck's Bakery was using more than 500,000 pounds each of flour and sugar annually. In a 1968 Bee story, Lauck said, "Our bread will not keep nearly as long as supermarket bread since we do not add preservatives. Our products are baked to be eaten today or tomorrow."

Lauck sold his bakery in 1972. He died in 1976 at 77.

More on Chrisman's restaurant: After the answer to a question about Chrisman's ran on March 21, Jim Stites of Fresno e-mailed his memories of the restaurant on Olive Avenue and the owners, Lloyd and Mary Chrisman.

"I used to go there with my family on Sundays after church in the 1950s," Stites wrote. "At that time, it was not a drive-in restaurant. When you walked in, Mr. Chrisman was there to greet you and to seat you at a booth or table. He was kind and gracious and treated every customer as a friend and a guest.

"We always ordered the fried chicken dinner," which came with homemade biscuits and honey, Stites said. "I can still remember the taste of that chicken. It was the best I ever had at a restaurant."