Hershel California Fruit Products
| Business |
Cannery |
|---|---|
| Active |
1920 - 1956 |
| Brands |
Pacific Star |
| Successors |
Tri-Valley Growers |
Summary
Canner, processing fruit, tomatoes, and "cardoons" (1920). "Tomato Paste Our Specialty".
Locations
| Location | Years | Address | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lodi | 1935- | Eight Mile Road, west of Cherokee Lane | (1935, "Lodi News":http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2761 |
| Riverbank | 1956 | Stanislaus Street | Article about cannery building screening for waste solids ("Feb 1, 1956 Modesto Bee":http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=PXMuAAAAIBAJ |
| San Francisco | 1921 | 437 Eddy | Colocated with Hershel Rothenberg Company |
| San Jose | 1920-1980's | Moorpark and Race Street | Turned into office buildings in the 1980s. |
| Woodland | ??? | Originally Matmor canning (14 car spur on SN). Name changed to Hershel sometime in the 1940's. |
Details
Moorpark and Race Street, San Jose (1920), with branch offices in San Francisco and New York. Took over Contadina in the 1920 acc. to articles mentioning the new Lodi Cannery ( March 29, 1935 Lodi News ). An April 1920 Canning Age article notes that a huge crop was canned in 1918 under government stimulus, but a huge amount of fruit was held over to 1919, and there was a great deal of uncertainty about how much of the government's product would be sold. This might suggest the cause for the sale.
Company had been run solely by the Aiellos from 1917-1920, then didn't appear in the 1919 city directory, then reappeared as Hershel California in 1920, wiht Aron Hershel as the principal.
Purchased Pacific Star brand in 1922. October 1922
Western Canner and Packer , 1922. Was canning 150,000 cases of tomato paste, purchase will increase volume by 20,000 cases. 90% of 1922 pack had already been sold.
May 1922 Western Canner and Packer Western Canner and Packer includes interview with H. Hershel about recent sales trips.
July 1922 Western Canner and PAcker reports Hershel purchasing five acres and Race and Moorpark.
Added building in 1928: "INDUSTRIAL building, one story, $12,630, Moorpark and Race Sts, San Jose; owner Herschiel Fruit Prod. Company, Premises; contractor. Megna & Newell, Bank of Italy Building, San Jose" ( Building and Engineering News, 1928 )
Aron Hershel had been managing the company since 1920. Supposedly, He'd just gotten rid of his San Jose interests in 1935. Listed as proprietor of German Cooperage Company, 117 Brazil, SF in 1913. There's an Aron Hershel born in Romania in 1884, emigrated to the US in 1904, lived in San Francisco and San Jose by 1925, in Stockton in 1940, 55 years old, born in Targu Okna, Romania
Ancestry.com Lived in Daly City in 1910 (38 Theta Avenue, "top of the hill in Daly City!", with his brother Morris and family) and 1920, San Jose in 1925 (Fremont Street in Rose Garden). Estate of Aron Hershel also was in an appeals court case; supposedly, the Aron Cannery Company had been sold to Tri-Valley in 1956 for $1,000,000.
168 CalApp2D Page 659 There was also a suit in 1954 against Hunts for dropping prices in order to chase out a competitor
citation of case
Estate trustee formed in 1945. Picture of Mr Hershel in passport application. (
ancestry.com
New cannery in 1935 had equipment built by the Canned Fruit Machinery Company of San Jose.
Eventually became part of Glorietta Foods cooperative which was taken over by Tri Valley Grocers in early 1980s.
"Purchased 5 acres at Lincoln and Race Streets, San Jose, for a large, modern cannery."
Western Canner and PAcker, 1922 (Extended the Brelle Jar property?)
See Modesto Bee article, December 3, 1979 about Tillie Lewis closing Modesto plant, and comments about Contadina in San Jose closing in 1978-1979.
Riverbank plant appears to have eventually become Sun Garden-Gagni ( November 9, 2009 Modesto Bee Sale of old mainline land (and relinquishment of government restrictions from transcontinental railroad land grant) mentioned sale of land to Hershel ( HR 1658