Physical description: Crops at Lotito farm. Lotito rented the farm at 38th & Zypher around 1930. See below. See also PCCLI1698
This photograph is a digital scan of an original photograph lent for copying during the Italians of Colorado project. The original photograph is not owned by History Colorado. The digital scan was donated with permissions (see permissions in Registrar's file) and accessioned into the History Colorado collection.
Project description:
In 2002, the Colorado Historical Society (now known as History Colorado) founded the Colorado Italian American Preservation Association (CIAPA). A volunteer organization, CIAPA’s mission is to work collaboratively with the Society and other organizations to develop, support and coordinate projects that preserve, promote and celebrate Italian American culture and heritage. Since 2002, CIAPA has carried out its mission by meeting with people from the Colorado Italian American community, recording their stories and creating an archive of research materials that includes oral histories, photographs, moving images, sound recordings and artifacts. To date, CIAPA has helped the Society acquire over 200 oral histories, 600 artifacts and nearly 6,000 photographs. Since 2002, CIAPA has developed over 4,000 research files, all of which document the history, culture and traditions of Italian American families in Colorado.
Notes:
See MSS.02595 Larry Lotito and Lucille Lotito Pesce files for additional information and images.
From the book Italy in Colorado by Alisa DiGiacomo:
Rocco Lotito Sr.
Born in Italy to Vincenzo and Maria Lotito, Rocco Lotito grew up in north Denver and attended Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church, where Mother Cabrini taught him catechism. After the sixth grade, he apprenticed with a leather-working company, the Colorado Saddlery Company, making harnesses and saddles. When his father died in 1909, the twenty-two-year-old took over this father’s peddling route. That same year, while visiting a neighbor, Rocco saw a photograph of his neighbor’s half-sister, the sixteen-year-old Concetta Maria Francesca Ruoti. He began writing to her in Potenza, and in 1910 she left Italy for America, arriving in Colorado that same year. They were married at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and in 1911, their first child, a son named Rocco Jr. was born, followed by Vincent “Jim,” Lawrence and Lucille.
With the peddling business facing competition from new supermarkets, Rocco went into truck farming. In 1929, the family moved to Wheat Ridge, where Rocco rented an eight-acre farm. When he couldn’t make a decent living on eight acres, Rocco bought thirty acres in Arvada. The Lotito Farm prospered, raising spinach, radishes, asparagus, rhubarb, strawberries, lettuce, corn, cabbage, carrots, Pascal celery, pansies, and daisies. Rocco was soon known as the “Pansy King” for his four-inch-diameter flowers.
After World War II, Rocco and his son Jim built a greenhouse, where they grew chrysanthemums and other flowers year-round. The Lotito Farm became the Lotito Greenhouses, eventually expanding and moving to a bigger facility.
In 1919, Concetta had contracted the Spanish flu in the worldwide epidemic, leaving her heart weakened. She never fully recovered. In 1933, she died at age thirty-eight. Rocco Lotito died in Denver in 1967, leaving the business to his son Jim Lotito. Today, part of the original farm remains in the Lotito family, and Rocco and Concetta’s daughter Lucille lives on the property.