Chapter 29
-- Compiled by the Cumberland Women's Club
and Published by the Cumberland Advocate
1874-1974
(used by permission of the Cumberland Advocate)
Donated by Linda Mott
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The Cumberland "Canning Factory"
The Cumberland Canning Plant was built in 1912; on the site previously occupied by a "heading mill" (which made ends for wooden barrels and kegs) and by John Nimlos stockyards.
The builder was a canner-banker from Greenwood, Indiana by the name of Grafton Johnson. At the same time he built pea canneries at Clear Lake and Ladysmith in Wisconsin.
Operations got off to a fairly shaky start. The first five years the Cumberland plant was operated by various groups including W. Christenson, a group including Lewis Larson, and by Pressing Canning Company of Norwalk, Ohio.
In 1917
Grafton Johnson combined his three Northern Wisconsin plants with others
in Indiana and Michigan to form "The Fame
Canning Company" and hired M.A.
Dunham, a young canner from Michigan to operate
the three plants. Shortly thereafter the entire Fame Canning Company was
purchased by Wilson and Company--Chicago
meat packers who two years later sold
"Fame"
to Austin Nichols and Company--a
New York wholesale grocery concern.
The operation soon became an established success; so in 1925-16 Fame built new plants at Frederic and Milltown; actually built by Birger Johnson under Dunham's supervision.
In 1928,
Stokley
Brothers and Company, young ambitious canners
from Newport, Tennessee, acquired Fame and promptly rebuilt and modernized
the Cumberland plant. They soon started experimenting with the production
and canning of other crops. Besides peas; snap beans, corn, beets, carrots,
sauerkraut, potatoes, cranberry sauce and other products were packed.
However,
only peas and snap beans have survived the test of time. The two surviving
plants (Clear Lake, Ladysmith, and Milltown having been closed) Cumberland
and Frederic, enlarged and modernized, now have greater production than
all five plants had 20 years ago.
Years ago, the pea vines were cut in the fields and hauled to the vining stations for threshing. Now days mobile viners are used that separate the vines from the shelled peas right in the fields and eliminate the hauling of the vines.
Up until 1960 all wax and green beans were picked by hand. Growers had to hire hundreds of men and women, girls and boys, to pick the crop. Many were transported by bus into the bean fields; from as far away as Eau Claire. Today beans are harvested by mechanical bean pickers that comb the beans off the bushes; each such picker doing the work of at least one-hundred hand pickers.
The Cumberland Plant has not missed a year of operation since it was built in 1912, which suggests favorable labor relations. Nor has it been necessary for the Company to buy or rent land for raising crops; which in turn indicates a good healthy Company-Grower relationship.
"Old
Timers" are apt to remember the names of many of the early cannery employees.
In the fielding department--Ed Wycoff,
the first fieldman; who used to travel the rural roads driving a horse
and buggy. George Johnston,
Louie
Shortner,
L.
St. Angelo,
Walt
Florer,
Pat Capuzzi
and others. In the plant--Frank Bayless,
C.O.
Lovaas,
Tom Silliman,
Boyd
Dunham and
Joseph
Johnson,
Jack
Ranallo and A.H.
Shimnick, many years district auditor.
More recent management included Charles Saile, who became plant manager in 1940 guided the operations until his retirement in 1967--with the help of Steve Jansen (1933-1971) and Angelo Ranallo who joined the organization about 1936 and is the present manager.
MA. Dunham--the first District Manager--continued in that capacity from 1917 to 1956, except for a period of several years in the late 1930s, when the Company needed his services elsewhere. First was in the Texas Rio Grande Valley, later in New Bedford, Massachusetts. His place was taken by D.H. Steinburg, an experienced canner from Canada, who guided the northwestern Wisconsin operations until an auto accident took his life in 1941; at which time Dunham returned to Cumberland, and continued as District Manager until his retirement in 1956. He was succeeded by S.H. Poukey, who in turn retired and was replaced in 1967 by Gordon Johnson, Frederic Plant Manager.
According
to District Manager Johnson and Plant Manager Angello Ranallo the program
for 1974 and the years ahead is "Full Steam Ahead."
to Universal
Foods Corporation--Stella Cheese
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