Los Gatos Fruit Packing Company
| Business |
Cannery |
|---|---|
| Active |
1882 - 1888 |
Locations
| Location | Years | Address | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Los Gatos | None | Santa Cruz Avenue | |
| Los Gatos | 1890, 1893, 1907 | Santa Cruz Avenue (1890, 1893, 1907) |
Santa Cruz Avenue (Los Gatos Canning Company) |
Details
Founded in 1882, went bankrupt by 1888.
History From LG Planing: "In 1882, fourteen residents of Los Gatos formed the Los Gatos Fruit Company and constructed a large plant on a parcel spanning Santa Cruz Avenue to the east and Lyndon Avenue to the west, between Bean Avenue to the south and W. Main Street to the north. Although the Los Gatos Canning Company plant could produce 5,000 cases of canned fruit seasonally, it went out of business and was purchased by San Francisco-based D. L. Beck and Son, which added a spur connecting it to the railroad and increased production to 50,000 cases of fruit annually, employing 250 to 300 workers during the peak season. It remained at this location until 1907 when the Hunt Brothers of Hayward, California, purchased the company and moved it to Santa Cruz and Saratoga Avenues. It doubled the plant's capacity and continued to be a leading employer in Los Gatos for many years."
August 13, 1898 Pacific Rural Press "Peach Canning-an Jose Mercury, Aug. 7: The Los Gatos cannery is now running on the peach crop. The last few days of cool weather have been a great help to fruit raisers on account of the fruit ripening more slowly and giving the growers and packers a better chance to handle it. The coming week will be the rush week for peaches, and the institution will run day and night to handle the fruit. The system on which the cannery has been run this season under the management of George Hooke has enabled the cannery to handle more fruit and work less hours than the seasons heretofore, and the fine quality of fruit packed this year, with the great advance in price, will make this season the banner year for both the growers and the cannery"
George H. Hooke, superintendent in 1890.
Shipped 18 cars of fruit in a week in March, 1886 ( San Jose Daily News