New book about Dixon’s Beier’s Bread serves up a rich slice of city’s history

DIXON – A new book tells the story of Beier’s Bread, an iconic family-run bakery founded in Dixon 156 years ago.

"Baked Fine Since ’69" tells the story of Beier’s Bread, which started in Dixon and grew to one of the largest independent bakeries in the country.

The book was written by George John Beier, the great-great-grandson of Reinhold Beier, a German immigrant who founded the Beier Baking Company in 1869 with his wife. The pair left Elxleben, Prussia (modern-day Germany), traveling more than 3,700 miles across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a new beginning, eventually settling in Dixon.

The book uses personal family accounts and detailed research to recount the couple’s progress as they built a small kiln and started the foundation for a family-run bakery that spanned three generations with multiple facilities in cities across northern Illinois and eastern Iowa.

Beier said he was inspired to write the book as a way to reconnect with his heritage and preserve a piece of local history.

“I just turned 80, and was looking at the length of my life and what you’re going to do on this earth while you’re here,” Beier said. “I never met my great-great-grandfather or my great-grandfather. I knew of Dixon and lived there many years, and knew about the bakery, but never inquired as much as I probably should have, particularly when my aunt was still alive.”

However, Beier said the true spark of inspiration came when Pat Gorman, a former local historian, contacted him with a box of old photographs related to the Beier family.

This unexpected discovery pushed him to begin researching earnestly, using tools such as Ancestry.com, old newspaper archives and Dixon-focused Facebook groups to collect stories from people whose families had worked at the bakery, including Lloyd Black, who worked at the bakery in the 1950s as a Dixon High School student.

“Baked Fine Since ’69″ soon will be stocked at Books on First in downtown Dixon.