March 10, 1910: Duluth’s Attilo Castigliano named consular to Italy

On this day in 1910, Duluthian Attila Castigliano was named United States consular to the Kingdom of Italy with jurisdiction over the state of Minnesota and northern Michigan. According to one biographer, “The duties of his office involve a general protection of the interests of the Italian people in the district where over seventy-five thousand Italians are living; more particularly the furnishing of Italian business concerns in Italy commercial and financial references; in administering to the estates of deceased nationals; promoting friendlier relations between the Italian element and the local public.” Castiogliano was born in Valperga in the Province of Torino, Italy, March 25, 1881. He graduated from the Agricultural College of Caluso in 1901, and four years later arrived in the United States and found work with the State Savings Bank of Laurium, Michigan. Following his appointment, Castigliano first established an office in Hibbing, but relocated to Duluth in 1911. During World War I Castigliano was kept busy, as his office had “charge of the inspection of all condensed milk exported from the United States to Italy and of a large number of meat contracts. He alsomanaged to collect funds worth over 40,000 lire in Duluth and sent it to the Italian War Orphans’ Relief Committee at Rome. In recognition of his services the King of Italy honored him with the appointment as Knight of the Crown of Italy. In 1922 one biographer wrote that “While people of Italian nationality and ancestry have become so numerously represented in northern Minnesota as to decidedly influence and call for established institutions in church, social, commercial and other affairs, probably no one person represents more truly the great body of Italian Americans in an official way than Attilio Castigliano.”

Attilio Castigliano. (Image: Minnesota Historical Society)