ne of the many who came to Alaska looking for a better life, Gaetano Iannone was born in Compobasso, Italy in 1866. He began studies for the priesthood, but gave them up and immigrated to the United States in 1890. In Utah, he met Lauretta Pesco, who was born in Palermo, Sicily in 1884 and was living with family in Salt Lake City. After a long courtship, Gaetano and Lauretta were married there in 1904.

Gaetano, who became known as “Joe,” kept hearing of the construction of a railroad in the north. He saw Alaska as presenting him with an opportunity to establish himself in business and as a great place to raise a family. The Iannone’s first child, Mary, was born in 1904 and after their second child, Floyd was born in 1906, they left Salt Lake and landed in Seward, Alaska. Joe obtained work on the railroad construction and decided Girdwood would be a good location to establish a store and roadhouse, as it was a construction camp for the south district of the line.

Joe built a good-sized, log-cabin roadhouse and store, and business was good during the construction years. With the completion of the railroad in 1923, Joe, Lauretta and their family moved to the railroad headquarters, the town of Anchorage. By this time they had had seven more children: Jessie, born in 1907; Lela, born in 1909; Margie, born in 1911; Addie, born in 1913; James, born in 1916; Elvera, born in 1920 and Virginia, born in 1922.

The man who was named Gaetano Iannone in his native Italy was by then known to acquaintances as “Joe Reno.” Asked why he used the surname Reno rather than the original Iannone, Joe’s explanation was that when he worked for the railroad the paymaster could not correctly spell or pronounce “Iannone.” The paymaster chose to use Reno instead, and the name stuck.

Joe opened a general store on the corner of 4th Avenue and C Street in 1924. He sold general merchandise and miscellaneous clothing, but mostly groceries, with Italian specialties. With the large family he now had, he was never wanting for help in the store. The family kept their business on this corner until 1937, when they moved one block down the hill to 3rd Avenue and C Street, where Joe had purchased an existing building and small store from a man whose name was Bauman. Lauretta died in 1936, and Joe built a small hotel next door to the store, which he operated until his death in 1942.

Gaetano “Joe” Iannone/Reno and his wife, Lauretta Pesco Iannone/Reno are both buried in the Catholic section of Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery.

The oldest of the Iannone/Reno children, Mary Agbaba, had four children, Milan, Steven, Dan and Jean. Mary died in 1997 and all of her children are also deceased. Son Floyd Iannone/Reno had a son, Floyd Jr. and a daughter, Violet Jean. Daughter Jessie Corliss had three daughters, Betty Haynes, Nancy Peifer and Janet Shaw. Daughter Lela Johnson had no children. Daughter Margie Weseman had a son, George and a daughter, Loretta. Daughter Addie Hausman had three children, Chester, Donna and Lester. Son James Iannone/Reno, now deceased, had no children, nor did daughter Elvera Sidars. The ninth and youngest of Joe and Lauretta’s children, Virginia Johnston, had one son, Leroy James Johnston, Jr.