Kopp, Adolph

Born at Wangen, Canton of Berne, Switzerland, in 1873, Adolph Kopp was the son of Jacob and Barbara Kopp. Following his father’s death, Kopp left school at age fifteen to support his family, eventually emigrating to the United States at age nineteen and settling near Selma, California. He worked for five years as a farm hand and horticulturist—including a year at the Agricultural Experiment Station east of Tulare—before entering the ranching trade independently through local land leases.

In 1902, Kopp purchased a forty-acre ranch two miles northwest of Parlier, later expanding his operations to cultivate sixty acres of peaches, muscat and Thompson seedless grapes, apricots, and alfalfa. He equipped the property with modern pumping and irrigation machinery and built a commodious residence on the tract. Married in 1903 in Switzerland to Verina Pfister, with whom he had three children (Ida, Adolph Jr., and Harold), Kopp was a stockholder in the First National Bank at Parlier, a member of the California Raisin Association, and an active supporter of the German Lutheran Church in Selma.