1128 South Winnebago Street, Rockford Sunlite Dairy

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By early 1936 Gaspare Calo had moved to Rockford after serving two years in Leavenworth Prison for running a bootlegging ring in Springfield, Illinois along with Frank Zito and Vincent Salvo. Calo and Salvo were said to be lieutenants for Zito, who was Springfield’s LCN boss. When Calo moved to Rockford, Frank Zito’s brother Joe was already living there and helping boss Tony Musso and his gang to run things. Zito’s sister Providenza had married Calo so the two men were also brothers-in-law.

In June 1936 Calo had taken out a permit for $12,000 to build the Sunlite Dairy at 1128 South Winnebago Street along with Joe Zito, whom he had gone into a partnership with. Zito was the treasurer of the company and Calo was the president. Others listed as having a stake in the business were vice president Charles Gaziano, whose sister Mary had wed Joe Zito, and Charles B. Joyce who was listed as an officer of the company. Joyce’s son Robert was listed as a sales manager.

Calo and Zito were flush with profits from their respective bootlegging businesses and sank it into the Sunlite Dairy. By 1938 the dairy had Salvatore Cannariato working as a plantman. Cannariato was working there to finance his way through law school and would later become a well-known attorney in the Rockford area who defended many Rockford LCN members and associates over the years.

In 1961 Calo and Zito had sold the Sunlite Dairy business to the larger Muller Pinehurst Dairy and by that October, Calo had moved back to his native Casteldaccia, Sicily. By this time, Zito had become Rockford LCN consigliere and remained in Rockford having secretly owned or controlled at least two dozen Rockford area taverns.

By 1976 Rockford LCN underboss Frank Buscemi had started up an Italian food distribution business named Rondinella Foods and housed it in the old Sunlite Dairy building. It was said that Buscemi used force and extortion to get the area restaurants to purchase ingredients from his business.
Following increased pressure from the IRS, Buscemi sold Rondinella in 1981 to the DiGiacomo brothers- Salvatore and Alfonso, but kept the building while the brothers ran the company.

An April 1986 FBI file delving into the Rockford LCN and their involvement in the narcotics business stated that Rondinella Foods at 1128 South Winnebago Street “continues to be a meeting place for known and suspected Rockford La Cosa Nostra figures and associates” and many phone calls were noted coming and going from the business to places in Germany, Australia, Italy and other states in the U.S.

Just before midnight on May 17, 1988 someone tossed a pipe bomb through an office window at Rondinella Foods at 1128 S. Winnebago Street. Vince Buscemi, Frank Buscemi’s son and part owner, said no inventory was damaged in the explosion but an office and supplies in there were. Rockford LCN underboss Frank Buscemi had died the previous December and it was quite possible a message was being sent to Vince and his brothers, Frank, Jr. and Salvatore, who had partnered with their father in the vending machine and food distribution ventures.

Today, 1128 South Winnebago Street is shown on Mapquest as Caldwell’s Fish and Seafood, but it is unknown who the actual owners are.

[sdeitche]

Good article! The building looks kind of out of place in such a residential neighborhood. Interesting design.