Sewall Brown and Company

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Summary
Main Location

Vasona
Active

~1934 - ~1950's

Sewall Brown and Company was an apricot and prune pit processor, run for many years by Sewall Brown. The facility had been a the Gem City Packing Company originally, but was sold to Sunsweet and spent most of its life breaking up apricot pits.

In an oral history interview, Nolton Shore remembered the Sewell plant having huge piles of apricot shells. He also remembers the entire yard was paved[1].

A great article from the San Jose Evening News describes the business and includes a choice interview with Mr. Brown himself[2].

See also Places I Won't Model: Sewall Brown And Co, and the "history of the Gem City Packing house".

Locations

Location Years Address Details
Vasona 1920's - 1950's Winchester Ave Just south of the current Netflix offices
Santa Paula branch plant[3]

Photos

Apricot pit sacking

Details

Ad in Jan 1 1934 San Jose News: Apricot Shells: Summer rate 50 cents per ton in pile - bring your sacks - or 25c per yard in bulk.

References

  1. Richard Mors, Interview of Nolton Shore. Interview from May 25, 1990. In collection of Los Gatos Library.
  2. July 23, 1928 San Jose Evening News
  3. George F. Bruntz, History of Los Gatos. Valley Publishing, 1971.