Charlottesville was ripe for own canning factory

In early February 1905, any number of people in Albemarle County were saying it for the first time — Charlottesville Canning Company. The name started circulating when John Davis, an executive with the W.C. Davis Company of Philadelphia, arrived in Charlottesville with a grand proposition.

The company Davis represented was in the business of creating and operating canning factories. It had done it some 30 times before throughout the country, and now it wanted to do it here.

The idea made perfect sense, seeing as how Charlottesville was surrounded by vast acreage of fertile land producing bountiful harvests of fruits and vegetables. It also was a major railroad town, with tracks coming in from all directions.

Shelf-stable progress

The canning business had been a growth industry for nearly a century and still was striving to meet the ever-increasing demand. By 1905 the know-how and machinery had reached a level that made it possible for the proposed factory to produce 30,000 cans a day.

The Napoleonic Wars brought about the advent of canned goods. As Napoleon Bonaparte famously noted, “An army moves on its stomach.” Without a food supply that could be preserved and easily transported, military campaigns had to cease during winter and spring.

A contest promoted by the French newspaper Le Monde offered a 12,000-franc prize to the person who could come up with an efficient and inexpensive means of preserving food for the French army. In 1809, candy maker and brewer Nicolas Appert pocketed the winnings when he demonstrated a technique of preserving food by boiling it in glass bottles and then sealing them.

Within a year Peter Durand had masterminded a way to use tin or wrought-iron canisters instead of glass jars. Metal containers were much cheaper and sturdier than glass, and the word “canister” was quickly shortened to “can.”

From troops to tables

It wasn’t war that was generating a growing demand for canned goods during the dawn of the 20th century. It was the mass exodus of rural people moving to cities that was creating commercial empires with names like Nestle, Heinz and Campbell Soup Company.

On the evening of Feb. 6, 1905, Davis gave a presentation to the local Chamber of Commerce and the invited public. He explained how his company established factories, and he made the point that the company didn’t confine itself to one line, but canned all types of fruits and vegetables.

Two days after Davis gave his well-received pres-

entation, The Daily Progress provided a primer of sorts on its front page. It was titled “How Towns Get Factories: Hint to Charlottesville Regarding Proposed Canning Plant.”

The article started with the premise that every town would like to get a factory of some kind.

It went on to say 99 percent try to get a manufacturer to put in a plant, and 99 percent of those fail.

The next strategy noted was for the town to raise a bonus and give it to a factory.

Not always a wise move, the writer warned, and then provided an example.

“The parties accepted the bonus, put in a small sum of their own, and sometimes none, built up a large credit, got all the cash they could out of the transaction and abandoned the plant,” the journalist wrote.

“The town was worse off. It not only lost its bonus, but had a dead factory. A dead factory is a hoodoo to any town until some miscreant benefactor sets it afire.”

It then was explained that large factories didn’t locate in towns the size of Charlottesville, because they need too much capital to get going.

But there was a Goldilocks factory that was just right for smaller places.

These were the class of factories, like canning plants, that needed to be near their sources of raw materials.

In 1905, fruits and vegetables needed to be canned soon after being picked to capture the peak flavor.

Apparently, this made a lot of sense to people, and before February was out, stock in the factory was being snapped up by investors.

By early March, $15,000 in stock had been sold, and a site on Rose Hill near the Southern Railway had been chosen for the building.

Construction of the new factory got under way in mid March and was completed by early summer. The cost — around $12,000.

To ensure an ample supply of produce, the fledgling company gave local farmers free tomato seeds. It also provided seed for sweet corn and beans at wholesale prices.

Channing M. Bolton was made president of Charlottesville Canning Company, and C.G. Maphis became secretary and treasurer. The number of full-time workers varied between 30 and 50, depending on the season.

Although a variety of produce was canned in the plant, the factory quickly established a specialty for canning sweet corn, fruits and pumpkins.

In an article that appeared during the factory’s second year of operation, it was said the plant had quickly “achieved a reputation extending throughout the entire country for general purity, flavor and uniform excellence.”

CCC was especially proud of its cider mill, “from which some forty barrels of the finest cider ever drunk by mortal man is turned out daily.”

The company also generated its own electricity and had it own water works.

It was just the sort of factory the citizens of Charlottesville could be button-popping proud of.

And for a time, people throughout the country opened cans of Albemarle County peaches and savored the sweet taste of goodness on their tongues.