Names such as Libby, McNeill and Libby and Bercut-Richards are no strangers to local residents. But gone are these once thriving businesses, along with many other such businesses that once made Sacramento a cannery city.
The history of the city’s canneries date back to the late 19th century, with the first of these businesses being the Capital Packing Co., which was located in two stores on Front Street, between K and L streets.
Opening in 1882, Capital Packing, which boasted its “hermetically-sealed goods,” was no small operation.
Within its first year of operation alone, with the assistance of about 400 workers during its busy season, the cannery produced about 4,000 cases of canned fruit, salmon, asparagus and honey.
The business, which was then operated by its original manager Edgar B. Carroll, flourished, adding two more stores alongside its other stores in 1883, before relocating to a larger site at 11th and B streets in 1886.
Using goods directly from local sources, the cannery was so successful that its products could be found throughout the United States, England, Australia and China.
A second Sacramento cannery, the Sacramento Packing and Drying Co., opened in 1888 at 6th and G streets.
The Sacramento Packing and Drying Co. was established as a result of a proposal by the manufacturing committee of the Sacramento Improvement Association.
The Sacramento Daily Record-Union reported on the beginnings of this cannery in its May 23, 1888 edition, as follows:
“The papers will be filed with the County Recorder and Secretary of State today under the name of the Sacramento Packing and Drying Co., and the following well-known citizens will be the directors for the first year: J.M. Avery, C.H. Cummings, William Schaw, Edward Dieterle, A.S. Hopkins, J.F. Hill, Sacramento; J. Routier, M.C. Pike, John Studaris, Routiers Station; William Johnston, Richland; George A. Smith, Courtland.”
The reputation of this cannery was enhanced through the May 26, 1888 election of Byron H. Hulburd as superintendent.
Hulburd, whose brother, H.G. Hulburd was at the time the superintendent of General Bidwell’s cannery in Chico, had gained notoriety all over the coast for his operation of a cannery in Placerville.
Another notable person associated with the Sacramento Packing and Drying Co. was Louis Gaume (1852-1928), a former resident of 3021 I St. who served as the cannery’s superintendent for 15 years.
After leaving this cannery, Gaume, who is buried in the historic East Lawn Cemetery on Folsom Boulevard, continued his success in the canning industry.
Gaume, who gave his name to a variety of successful California canned peaches, also was known for budding prosperous, local peach trees.
The city’s first canneries were gone by the early 20th century, as indicated by a 1905 city directory, which under the heading of “Canners,” lists only Central Cal Canneries at Front and P streets, the California Fruit Canners’ Association at the old Sacramento Packing and Drying Co. site and an asparagus cannery in nearby Isleton.
Libby, McNeill and Libby, which was established in Maine in 1868, began its long-standing, prosperous tenure in the capital city in 1913 on 89 acres at the modern-day address of 1724 Stockton Blvd.
With the growing success of Libby, Sacramento became widely known within the canning industry as the site of the two largest fruit and vegetable canneries in the world.
By 1927, Libby doubled its production at its Sacramento plant to 1.25 million cases per year—a number that equaled the production of the $3 million California Packing Corp., Plant No. 11 at 17th and C streets.
Combined with Sacramento’s other two large canneries at this time, the city’s 8-month fruit and vegetable canning season, which produced about 96 million cans of fruits and vegetables, provided almost continuous employment for about 4,500 men and women.
During the 1920s through the end of World War II, Libby, which included a 250,000-square-foot cannery building and as many as about 1,900 workers at its height, appealed to a large number of female workers through about 50 on-site employee cottages and a day care facility.
The book, “Portuguese Pioneers of the Sacramento Area,” makes a brief mention of an early Libby employee, Minnie Vargas, noting: “(Her husband) Frank Vargus worked for the California Vineyard Co. taking care of large pumps, while Minnie worked at Libby, McNeill and Libby to make ends meet.”
Minnie Vargus was definitely one of the cannery’s early workers, if not one of its original employees, since Frank Vargus passed away on Jan. 16, 1931, at the age of 47, therefore placing this reference in about the late 1920s or earlier.
The Libby plant finally ended its long tenure in Sacramento’s grand cannery history in 1982, when the site was sold and refurbished for new tenants, including the state Department of Health and Welfare.
One of the city’s most well-known and successful canneries, the 52-acre Bercut-Richards Packing Co., was established in 1931, near the American River levee at North 7th Street and Richards Boulevard.
The history of this cannery began in the late 1920s through a failed tomato cannery operated by Peter and Henri Bercut. The cannery closed in 1930 and was reopened in 1932 through the management of Theodore H. Richards.
During one of its most successful years, 1949, Bercut-Richards packed 2.4 million cases of produce that was distributed to the national market.
The cannery was sold about a half-century later and continued operation for about another decade as the city’s last fruit cannery, Sierra Quality Canners.
The Del Monte Corp. name also left its mark in the city’s canning history through its plant at the old California Packing Corp. site.
Opened in 1925 and closed in mid-1982, the 2-square-block cannery plant gained worldwide recognition through its large canning production of pears, peaches, tomatoes, spinach, pumpkin, beets, carrots and squash.
Another successful Sacramento cannery was the American Can Co. at 33rd and C streets.
Elk Grove resident Paula Schroeder said that her grandfather, Fermin Viteri was a longtime employee of this cannery.
“My grandfather, who was born in 1894, worked at the (American Can Co.) for many years,” Schroeder said.
The eleventh of eleven children, Viteri arrived at Ellis Island as an immigrant of Escoriaza (Guipuzcoa), Spain on Oct. 11, 1913 and made his way to Sacramento for the first time eight years later.
After leaving the capital city to work in a mineral mine in the Jackson, Calif. area, then for the Southern Pacific Railroad and a Northern California/Oregon construction company, Viteri took a job at the American Can Co. on April 20, 1943.
Residing at 3932 I St. in a house that he purchased in 1942 for $7,500, Viteri, who had a wife named Regina and nine children, made a career at the cannery, retiring at the age of 65 in 1960.
Another cannery that has experienced success in the capital city is the Campbell Soup Co. at 43rd Avenue and Franklin Boulevard.
One of the earliest employees at Campbell’s Soup, which opened in 1937, was Clyde Colton, who worked at the cannery for 36 years and 10 months.
Colton, 81, said that he has fond memories of his days working at the Campbell’s plant.
“I had a lot of good times there,” Colton said. “The place was only a year old when I started working there and I saw a lot of changes there. We started out with six can lines and when I left almost 37 years later, it had 14 can lines. Also, when I started there, we still soldered the cans.”
Colton added that he is able to relive many of his days at Campbell’s through monthly gatherings of former Campbell’s employees at the Hometown Buffet on Florin Road.
In recognition of the rich tradition of canneries in Sacramento, as well as the rest of the state, Mayor Clarence L. Azevedo proclaimed June 18, 1958 as Canning Industry Day in Sacramento. During a special ceremony on this day, the mayor was presented a memorial marker to commemorate the state’s first inland cannery, a salmon cannery, across the river from Sacramento’s K Street.
Today, although most local canning remains a thing of the past, Sacramento’s position as a former cannery capital remains one of its many historical claims to fame.