Golden Gate Packing Company
| Business |
Cannery |
|---|---|
| Main Location |
San Jose, CA |
| Active |
1877 - 1915 |
| Brands |
Sunset, Golden Gate, Butterfly, Family, Ajax, Artesian, Sainte Claire, El Perfecto, Pickwick Club |
Locations
| Location | Years | Address | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Jose | 1877, 1896, 1904, 1906, 1907, 1917 | 361 North Fourth Street |
Not in 1900 city directory. |
| San Jose | 1893, 1902 | 361-369 North Fourth Street |
Still listed as "Golden Gate" on valuation map from 1930. |
Labels and Advertisements.
Some example labels exist out on the internet.
December 1906 ad from Montreal Gazette listing the fruit they sold. Apricots, white cherries, greengage plums, golden drop plums, egg plums, damson plums, lemon cling peaches, yellow crawford peaches, white heath peaches, and bartlett pears were all listed by name
Details
Cannery, Incorporated 1877, by W.S. Stevens (brother-in-law of J.M. Dawson who did the first canning and built the San Jose Fruit Packing Company.) Managed initially by George Melville Bowman. Managed by Elmer Chase from 1907. Cannery bought by Hunt Brothers Packing Company in 1917.
says the building burned in 1879 and was rebuilt in 1880. Also had a wine cellar destroyed by the fire.
Another history, from Pen Pictures From The Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated (Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1888.):
This company have their works on Julian Street, between Third and Fourth Streets, and was started, in 1875, by W. H. Mantz and W. S. Stevens. It afterwards became the property of a joint-stock company, and was finally incorporated, in 1877, by F. S. Hinds, A. P. Jordan, and H. A. Keinath, of San Jose. The original premises were burnt to the ground, December 19, 1879, and was rebuilt in May, 1880. It is a two-story building, one hundred and twenty feet in length, and eighty in width. The cans used are manufactured on the premises. Employment is given to five hundred persons, principally females. The business is increasing each year, showing a larger export, chiefly to Eastern and foreign markets.
(Perhaps there was a transfer of ownership when Bowman died? Wife died August 12, 1915 in SF acc to August 13, 1915 San Jose Evening News).
History here:
http://www.sfgenealogy.com/santaclara/history/scchist12.htm http://www.sfgenealogy.com/santaclara/history/scchist12.htm
1901: 65,000 cases packed (out of 435,000 in Valley),
1899 article of "opposition combine" buying multiple canneries.
Elmer Chase obituary Secrets of Canning lists a plant in San Lorenzo in 1886.