A popular waterfront bakery in the gold rush days of San Francisco offered sliced bread to special customers.

As the word got out about the bread, the baker went to the cutlery store and bought a longer slicing knife so that he could slice two loaves at once to keep up with the demand for the bread.

Having a hard time slicing enough bread to satisfy his customers, he once again he went to the cutlery store and found a slicing knife long enough to slice three loaves at once.

More customers came for the sliced bread, and the baker was having a hard time slicing enough bread to keep up with the demand.

He went back to the cutlery store and told the clerk that he needed a knife long enough to slice four loaves at once.

The clerk said he did not have a slicing knife long enough, but did have a meat cleaver that could slice four loaves at a time.

Finally, the baker was able to keep up with customer demand by using the cleaver to slice four loaves at a time.

He became known as the father of the four loaf cleaver.

— Jack Evensizer, Dalton Gardens

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