H.G. Prince

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Summary
Business

Cannery
Main Location

Oakland
Active

1914-1930
Predecessors

Code-Portwood Canning Company, San Leandro Canning Company
Successors

California Packing Corporation

H. G. Prince was a jelly maker and later canner in the San Francisco Bay Area, formed as a successor to the Code-Portwood Canning Company around 1914[1][2]. The company's origins began in San Francisco as a jelly maker in 1868, moving to Fruitvale after the Great San Francisco Earthquake in 1906[3]. Cole Portwood was still listed as a separate company in 1912[4]. The company later expanded with a the purchase of the San Leandro Canning Company in May 1922[5]

Henry G. Prince, the principal, had been a fruit salesman[6] and supposedly had learned the trade working for Crosse and Blackwell[7]. Henry Prince died around 1922[8]. (Another story claims H.G. Prince died in 1917[9].

Prince was sold to California Packing Corporation between 1925 and 1930; product canned in their plants continued to have the H. G. Prince name on the labels through at least the 1940's[10].

H. G. Prince was an early adopter of trucks rather than the railroad to bring the crops to the cannery[11]. The cannery found that sending fruit by rail from meant stopping picking by 2:30 to get the crop to the railhead. With the trucks, crews could be picking til almost 5:00.

Locations

Location Years Address Details
Fruitvale 1921
San Leandro 1922

Photos

Cannery Buildings

Photos of employees from Oakland Museum.

References

  1. Canned Foods: January 24, 1914: "A contrivance has been invented by Arthur Duncan, manager of H. G. Prince & Co., successor to Code Portwood Canning Co....
  2. May 1922 Western Canner and Packer
  3. H. G. Prince. OaklandWiki.
  4. Canned Goods: Chamber of Commerce Journal, July 1912]
  5. May 1922 Western Canner and Packer
  6. 1900 United States Census
  7. Panorama of employees caption, Oakland Museum.
  8. Obituary: Henry G. Prince, western Canner and Packer. The obituary lists his company as the successor to the Cole-Portwood Canning Company.
  9. Among the Trade: May 25, 1917 California Retail The May 25, 1917 California Grocer's Advocate: "Henry G. Prince, head of the H. G. Prince Packing Co. of San Francisco, passed away at his home this week."
  10. My father remembers that the Del Monte San Leandro was still canning some grades of fruit with H.G. Prince labels in the 1940's when he held summer jobs there
  11. June 1921 Canning Age