Springdale Canning Company, looking northeast

Springdale Canning Company, looking northeast towards the
intersection of Huntsville Road and the Frisco Railroad tracks,
Springdale, about 1908. Organized by Judge Millard Berry and
others in 1886, the business is believed to have been the first
commercial cannery in Northwest Arkansas. It closed in 1903.
The building was used by another cannery before becoming an
ice plant. It was torn down in 2007.
Speece & Allen, photographers. Bobbie Byars Lynch Collection (S-77-53-18)
“…[Springdale Canning] company was organized in 1886 with
$3000 invested in the plant and an operating capital of about
$7000. They employ over 100 people during their busy season—
summer and fall. …Fifty cents a bushel was paid for peas in the
hull and 20 cents per bushel for tomatoes. One bushel of peas in
hull makes 13 pound cans. Three hands are now hired making cans.
Four hands can turn out nearly 2000 cans a day. With three or
four weeks experience, a country boy can make 600 cans per day—
making a dollar.”
Benton County Democrat, April 23, 1887
Canned Gold
Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Workers likely processing tomatoes, Prairie Grove Preserves
Canning Factory, Prairie Grove, late 1910s. In 1903 a group of
people in and around Prairie Grove agreed to give C.J. French
land, materials, cash, labor, and crops in exchange for the
construction of a $20,000 canning factory. In 1953 the factory
became the Kelly Canning Company. As fewer local farmers
grew tomatoes the company had to ship tomatoes into the area
for canning. The rising cost of shipping ended the business in
1978.
Helen Cook Collection (S-90-20)
“…workers put in 10 hour days beginning at 7 a.m. and received
10-cents per hour. Peelers received 3-cents per bucket of peeled
tomatoes. The buckets were made of red easily cleaned fiber. …The
tomato garbage (slop) was hauled away by wagon and team, some
of it being fed to the hogs. The entire factory crew numbered 114
at the checker case. Miss Effie Bain was first checker of the peeled
tomatoes. They were canned in No. 2½, No. 3 and No. 10 cans
which were filled by hand.”
Neva Barnes McMurry, recounting
the memories of Sarah Fidler, March 1967
Washington County Observer, November 14, 1985
Canned Gold
Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Processing grapes, Welch Grape Juice Company, Springdale,
about 1923. The plant was built in 1923 to take advantage of
nearby grape growers. During WW II, 120 German prisoners
of war worked there. At its peak, the plant could process four
million cases of juice-related products yearly. The plant closed
in 1978 as Welch consolidated its many operations.
Joanne Paisley Collection (S-2012-63)
The grapes are “…weighed and inspected at the receiving platforms,
whence the grapes are taken to washers and from there conveyed
by machinery to stemming machines. Here the grapes are separated
from the stems and dropped though aluminum pipes to aluminum
stirring kettles… The kettles heat the grapes and the juice is
extracted by hydraulic presses. The juice flows into heating kettles
and from there goes to five-gallon glass carboys [bottles] in which
it is stored in different cellars. …[later] the juice is siphoned out,
placed in automatic filters and then goes to automatic cappers. …
the juice is pasteurized and the bottles labeled, packed and shipped
away.”
Springdale News, April 29, 1937
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Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Pettigrew Canning Company workers, Pettigrew, late 1930s
to early 1940s. From left: unidentified, Edna Williams Bryant,
Nancy Ahart, unidentified, unidentified, and Pap Ahart. W.
Fletcher Keck started the business in 1935. The cannery was
a welcome source of income during the Great Depression, at a
time when the local timber industry was slowing down.
Oleta Bryant Collection (S-2008-34-4)
“People who worked at the [Pettigrew] canning factory made fifteen
cents an hour, or if you were peeling tomatoes, you were paid by
the bucket. Basically women did the processing and men ran the
heavy equipment. Every time a woman finished peeling a bucket of
tomatoes, somebody would bring her another bucket and punch a
ticket to show how many buckets she had peeled. My mother [Elva
Barker Martin] was very fast with her hands, so she worked at the
packing vat. She put a lump of salt in a can with the tomatoes and
sent it down to the capper, where the can was sealed.”
Wayne Martin
Pettigrew, Arkansas: Hardwood Capital of the World, 2010
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Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Morsani Canning Company, Tontitown, 1910s.
Edna Zulpo Collection (S-2007-110-13)
“When I left school, I did a lot of things. I worked out on a farm,
I picked cowpeas. We would get maybe half a cent per pound. …
Frank and Carrie Perona had a canning factory [in Tontitown]. …
The cannery was just seasonal, but I worked most of the year for
them. I did everything in that cannery. I fired the boilers. I cooked
the food in the retorts. I hauled all the way to Fort Smith and
Oklahoma City. We would work six days a week, 10 hours a day,
and at the end of the week we got a check for $6—a dollar a day.”
Floyd Maestri, 2002
Memories I Can’t Let Go Of: Life Stories from Tontitown,
Arkansas, 2012
“There were several men hired by the Railroad to promote tomato
factories. …a group of businessmen would put up the money
as loans to local banks. The banks would then contract with local
businessmen to buy the canning equipment. This would include the
racks, trays, boilers, etc., as well as putting up a building. The local
businessmen would then contract with area farmers to grow tomatoes
and guaranteed them a buyer for their crop. The bank would also
advance money to the farmers. The Railroad’s part was to send men
into towns and make all of the arrangements to get these businesses
started, and of course they would guarantee shipping, etc.”
Oak Leaves, Spring 1990
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Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Tomato pickers, Northwest Arkansas, 1930. Some of the
varieties grown were Rutgers, Marglobe, and Baltimore.
Rutgers was introduced in 1934 and boasted thick, fleshy outer
and inner walls with few seeds—perfect for canning. Farmers
often received seed and fertilizer from the canneries, the cost of
which was deducted from the purchase price of the crop.
Ray Watson Collection (S-96-56-23)
“Picking tomatoes was heavy, hot summer work and everybody
helped pick. Crates of tomatoes were stacked high all over. ...We
all remember wagon loads of tomatoes leaving a trail of juice in the
dust along the graded part of the road leading to Pettigrew [and
its cannery]. ...A wagon load of tomatoes is a very heavy load for
a team of horses to pull up hill. On the steepest part of a mountain
they could only pull a short distance before resting. ...The horses
would be wet with sweat and gasping for air in the summer heat. I
felt sympathy for them, feeling they paid a high price in life for the
little they got in return.”
Vernon Eaton
Madison County Record, May 30, 1996
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Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Alonzo Roberts with green beans to be processed for U.S.
armed forces, Springdale Canning Company, Springdale, 1943.
Howard Clark, photographer. Caroline Price Clark Collection (S-2002-72-569)
“For several days all of the boys at our mess had been talking about
how good the canned beans have been lately. I remarked that the
reason they’re so good is because they were canned in Arkansas [by
Springdale Canning Company].
Pfc. John P. Woods, New Caledonia,
Springdale News, August 2, 1945
“Today I found a case of your No. 10 cans of Nancy Jo spinach
right in our kitchen. Some of the soldiers probably thought I was
shell-shocked the way I acted when I saw those labels. I pasted on
enough of those labels one summer that I shouldn’t ever forget them.
I don’t mind saying it—it was just like a letter from home.”
Lt. Edgar C. Wood, Tunisia, May 13, 1943
Steele & Springdale Canning Companies brochure, 1946
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Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Workers picking and sorting spinach prior to its washing, Steele
Canning Company, Springdale, about 1948.
Shiloh Museum Collection (S-90-11-115)
“Only the choicest spinach is used which is grown in fields under
natural weather conditions, harmonizing with the fine composition of
the soil to produce the very finest flavored spinach. Careful handpicked operations permit delivery of only the choicest leaves to the
washers and a multitude of washing operations, many of them we
have pioneered, assuring a product for the consumer’s table which is
entirely free from grit.”
Steele & Springdale Canning Companies brochure, about 1948
Cooling vat, Steele Canning Company, Springdale, about 1948.
Roughly 360 cans would be placed into a large metal basket
for cooking. Once cooked, the cans were cooled with flowing
water. Smaller operations skipped this step, letting their cans
cool in the open air.
Shiloh Museum Collection (S-90-11-117)
“…[the] cooling vat with [its] continuous flow of water…produces a
quick chilled can resulting in a better vacuum. This quick chilling also
produces accurate favoring because of temperature control of the
finished canned product.”
Steele & Springdale Canning Companies brochure, about 1948
Canned Gold
Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Filling cans with spinach, Steele Canning Company, Springdale,
May 1969.
Ray Watson, photographer. Ray Watson Collection (S-85-325-2074)
“Nothing was screened in [at the Georgetown Cannery near Japton];
flies were very thick, as the waste was just hosed off the floors and
tables into a ditch or creek. ...the women took their children with
them to work. …My mother would put my younger sister and I on
a quilt, then stretch a tent-like cover of mosquito netting up over
us to keep the flies off. Most babies just lay in the flies, crawling in
the eyes and mouths, no wonder so many had dysentery. Very few
workers washed their hands after going to the toilet or diapering a
baby. I guess seeing so much unsanitary conditions as a kid is the
reason I didn’t want to eat commercially canned food.”
Lena Davis Law, August 1997
Madison County Musings, Fall 2006
“At the end of the day [at John Goucher’s cannery in Madison
County], the canning factory was cleaned using scalding water. …
the factory was sealed overhead with aluminum, the side walls
were covered with linoleum, and the floors were concrete so that
everything could be washed down. …they never had any trouble
with contamination. Mr. Jones, who was the inspector that came
around to check on the canning process, usually bought five cases
of tomatoes each year…for his own use after he had watched the
process and saw how clean the factory was.”
Joy Russell recounting the history of John Goucher
Fading Memories III: Stories of Madison County
People and Places, 1999
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Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Testing lab, Allen Canning, Siloam Springs, September 2, 1967.
With Deward Bishop (right).
Ray Watson, photographer. Ray Watson Collection (S-85-325-1547)
“We have quality control labs in every [Allen] plant and they check
the quality on every lot of merchandise that is packed. …When the
products are tested, the lab technicians look for factors that affect
weight, color, characteristic or texture and they look for the absence
of defects. The samples are also analyzed to test the salt content.
The grading or sizing of each lot is also double checked to insure the
count contained in each can size of the products is accurate.”
Inside Arkansas, Fall 1980
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Steele Canning Company products, Springdale, April 3, 1961.
Ray Watson, photographer. Marie Steele Collection (S-77-15-14)
“Back in 1924, when [Steele Canning Company] started, we bought
the cans in the bulk, in [railroad] car load lots, unloaded them, and
transported them, ricked in rows on hay frames on wagons from
Johnson to Steele [Community]. There were four loads to a car,
and it took one day and night and all the next day to unload the
cars, and haul the cans to the plant. …Today the cans are bought
by the car load in boxed paper bags which hold 210 No. 2 cans.
Unloaded, stacked and as needed they are emptied into filling
machines.”
Joe M. Steele
Springdale News, August 8, 1945
Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
The first Barrett Canning Factory, Grandview, about 1910.
Tracy Barrett (holding tray) convinced his father George to build
Carroll County’s first canning factory in 1910. Tracy hated farm
work and saw how the hard work of farming was affecting his
father’s health.
Robinson Canning Company, Siloam Springs, September 24,
1931. Owned by Burtis A. Rudolph, during the cannery’s first
year of the operation in 1925 it processed 25 railroad carloads
of tomatoes. It closed in 1935 when the Federal government
bought exhausted, eroded farmland for the construction of
Lake Wedington. There were few viable fields left for growing
vegetables.
Mrs. Tracy Barrett Collection (S-90-11-105)
M. Larrick, photographer. Dr. Lloyd Warren Collection (S-92-35-24)
Tracy Barrett persuaded “…area farmers to plant tomatoes. …
he erected a truly commercial canning factory, with his own railroad
siding and his own registered label. For several harvest seasons this
went full bore, giving the farmers a ready market and providing
many temporary jobs as he filled one boxcar after another with
canned tomatoes.”
Richard H. Barrett
Carroll County Historical Society Quarterly, Spring 1985
After its closing “The Robinson factory stood empty until it was torn
down in the fall of 1937. All that remain today are some cement
columns. Boys of the area used the cement water tank…as a
swimming pond.”
Canned Gold
History of Robinson and Kincheloe Communities, 1995
Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Valley Canning Company display, Hindsville Community,
1920s. In 1925 at least two libel suits were filed against the
cannery, alleging its string beans failed to meet Federal food
production standards.
Willie Bohannan Collection (S-83-82-50)
The U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas “…[alleged] that
the article [80 cases of canned stringless beans] had been shipped
by the Valley Canning Co., from Hindsville, Ark., on or about August
28, 1925 [to Marfa, Texas]… Adulteration of the article was
alleged in the libels for the reason that a substance, excess water,
had been mixed and packed therewith so as to reduce, lower, and
injuriously affect its quality and had been substituted wholly or in
part for the said article [string beans]. Adulteration for the further
reason that the article consisted in whole or in part of a filthy,
decomposed, and putrid vegetable substance.”
W.M. Jardine, Secretary of Agriculture
Service and Regulatory Announcements, Bureau of Chemistry,
January 28, 1927
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Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Canning Center, Springdale High School, Springdale, 1943.
The cannery was one of 20 such facilities throughout
Arkansas, furnished and controlled by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, to aid home canners in the proper methods of food
preservation.
Howard Clark, photographer. Caroline Price Clark Collection (S-2002-72-568)
The cannery had “…three large 33-quart capacity retorts, a small
pressure cooker, hot water cookers, 3 sealers, a dehydrator, bottle
cappers, pre-cookers and other minor equipment. …The cannery
is located in two north basement rooms of the school building
and will remain a permanent feature of the school, being open
for housewives and home canners of Springdale and neighboring
territory…”
Springdale News, July 8, 1943
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Welch Grape Juice Company, Huntsville Road, Springdale, June
1944. An existing railroad spur was extended from the nearby
ice plant to serve the factory, which relied on the railroad to
distribute their products.
Howard Clark, photographer. Caroline Price Clark Collection (S-2002-72-336)
“…this region thus possesses some focal transportation
characteristics, a fact of great value. To the canning industry this
has meant that the canned product can be moved out readily. It has
also meant that fruits and vegetables destined for the canneries can
move in, not only from immediately adjacent areas, but also from
contiguous regions north, west, and south.”
Irene A. Moke
Economic Geography, April 1952
Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Springdale Canning Company co-owners Luther Johnson (center
left) and Joe M. Steele, Frisco depot, Springdale, September
25, 1937. This was the first complete trainload of canned
vegetables ever shipped by one canning factory owner in
Springdale, and perhaps the first such shipment from Northwest
Arkansas. Steele was 32 years old at the time and owned or
co-owned five canneries.
William McIntosh, photographer. Philip Steele Collection (S-2005-112-6)
“Mr. Steele stated that orders enough to fill the 24 cars…came
in last week, and enough more goods were sold to fill eight more
cars, had there been time to label [the cans] and load the cars by
the time for the train to leave. …The cans were filled with…turnip
greens, mustard greens, spinach, green beans, and tomatoes. …The
Springdale plant processed 3,500 cases of beans in ten hours and
three of the factories, which can spinach, processed 8,000 cases per
day, the latter meaning the same as two and a half cars of empty
cans.”
Springdale News, September 30, 1937
Canned Gold
Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Allen Canning Company truck, Siloam Springs, July 23, 1964.
Earl Allen started the company in 1926. In his first year he had
canned 4,000 cases of tomatoes. A family-owned business, in
1988 Allen’s had 14 plants and distribution centers in five states
and offered over 85 different products.
Ray Watson, photographer. Ray Watson Collection (S-85-325-1472)
Steele Canning Company trucks, Springdale, 1940s-1950s. The
company was started in the Steele Community near Tontitown
in 1924, when Joe M. Steele needed money to attend college.
His business later grew to be the largest canning operation in
Washington County.
V.D. McRoberts, photographer. Philip Steele Collection (S-2005-112-5)
“The rural and small-urban economy has developed amazingly [in
the past 10 to 15 years]. The business districts of the towns are
spreading, the highway fairly hums with traffic, and anyone who
knew the rather somnolent region in 1935 would scarcely recognize
it now. No attempt is made here to credit the canning business alone
with this progress. However, there is no doubt that the canneries play
a leading role in the economy, and perform a most valuable function
for the farm areas of this region and of other districts outside of
northwestern Arkansas.”
Irene A. Moke
Economic Geography, April 1952
Canned Gold
Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Heekin Can Company, Springdale, February 10, 1982. The
company opened a manufacturing plant in Springdale in 1949
to be close to the major canneries. In 1986 Heekin shipped
about 430 million cans. Ball Corporation acquired Heekin
in 1993. Today the Springdale plant produces containers for
Southern and Midwestern customers.
Charles Bickford, photographer. Springdale News Collection (S-86-31-16)
“The pieces of tin…are placed in the feed slots on this body maker
machine. From there a button is pushed and the body takes off. It
is notched, folded, fluxed, expanded, bumped, warmed, soldered,
heated again, wiped and cooled. When it gets through with all of
this you have a tin can. . . That is, you have everything except the top
and bottom. All this folding, bumping, fluxing, etc., takes about half
a second.”
Springdale News, June 1, 1949
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Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Children pose with the Popeye statue, Allen Canning Company,
Highway 71, Springdale, June 18, 1980. Allen bought the
old Steele Canning Company building and the Popeye brand
in 1978. The plant closed in 2002 because the property was
landlocked; there wasn’t room for growth.
Mark Neil, photographer. Springdale News Collection (SN 6-18-1980)
“…[Popeye] caught on with millions of kids and soon became a
national hero, much to the delight of spinach marketers. Spinach
sales jumped 33 per cent and the vegetable has since enjoyed
increasing popularity. …The first Popeye spinach label [from Steele
Canning] will offer a three-piece Melmac dinnerware set featuring
Popeye characters, which will be offered for $2 and [two labels].”
Beatles promotion for Wagon Master beans, Steele Canning
Company, Springdale, August 1964. Art Pruett (left) and Phillip
Steele. Marketers used celebrities to increase brand popularity
and consumer purchases.
Charles Bickford, photographer. Springdale News Collection (SN 8/1964 #3)
“The beans were ‘terrific’ and the Beatles were popular, but the
campaign didn’t save Wagon Master beans, which died a slow
death… Consumers wouldn’t buy anything but pork and beans or
chili beans.”
Phillip Steele
Springdale News, April 10, 1994
Springdale News, December 6, 1965
Canned Gold
Shiloh Museum of Ozark History