This Former Cannery Served as a German POW Camp During WW II

Colorado Sanitary Canning Factory, Brighton Colorado

Date added: December 06, 2024

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Colorado
Industrial

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In 1908 Brighton was the county seat and most populous town of Adams County, located in an agricultural area of the county near the Weld County line. The town boasted a number of food processing facilities in the early twentieth century, including the Kuner Pickle Company, Brighton Creamery, Northern Colorado Dairy Company (cheese factory), O.E. Frink's cheese factory, Key's Syrup factory, Brighton Mill and Mercantile Company (feed mill and elevator), and H. Claussen Feed Mill. The Colorado Sanitary Canning Company is the only extant building once used for canning in Brighton.

The Wilmore Canning Company of Denver initially planned to erect a canning factory in Brighton. John T. Wilmore, S.S. Kirkpatrick, and E.E. Boyce incorporated the firm in 1903 and operated a factory in Denver until it burned down in 1907. Wilmore reasoned a plant in Brighton would have better access to more vegetables than a re-built factory in Denver. Before matters could proceed, a dispute over control of the company developed between Wilmore and Charles H. Green, a major stockholder. Two separate boards of directors were constituted, each claiming to be the company's legitimate leadership. The dispute went to court in March 1908, and Green emerged as president of the firm. Taking up the relocation plan, Green asked the Brighton business community to provide financial incentives for his company's relocation. The Brighton Commercial Club raised the $1,500 Green requested to partially cover the costs of building and equipping a new factory.

Construction on the Wilmore Canning Factory began on 1^st May 1908 at a site north of downtown Brighton on the west side of the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. Patrick Henry Roberts served as contractor for the $30,000 building. C.C. Cole received the order for producing the concrete blocks for the project, adding new machinery to handle the volume, including a patent mixer and gasoline engine. Cole was one of two entrepreneurs in Brighton producing concrete blocks; his advertisements in the local newspaper promised "all blocks are made with the latest improved face down wet process machine and are the most perfect and durable blocks made." Excavation for the factory was completed by mid-May.

Construction proceeded over the summer, and by late August the Brighton factory prepared to open. Having vanquished Wilmore, Green renamed the firm the Colorado Sanitary Canning Company. The Brighton Register announced a public reception would be held on 1^st September to celebrate the completion of the factory. The Brighton Blade described the cannery's public reception as "the greatest industrial event in the history of Brighton." The factory was thrown open to the public with all lights ablaze, machinery running, the Brighton band playing music, refreshments available in the basement, and dancing on the second story. The newspaper ran an extensive description of the plant:

The buildings and machinery represent a total cost of about $50,000. The building is lighted with the company's own electric light plant, and the water for all canning purposes is supplied from an artesian well on the property. The plant is what is known as a three-line plant, and has an estimated capacity of 210 cans per minute. It is equipped to can or process tomatoes, catsup, pork and beans, peas and sauerkraut. Every arrangement conducive to sanitary perfection in operation of the factory has been adopted. The buildings are 300 feet in length and the capacity will employ at full force 250 to 300 persons.

The Sanborn map for July 1908 shows a complex (labeled "from plans") including the factory building, an attached warehouse to the north, a boiler plant to the east (attached to the south wall of the warehouse), and a detached office to south. The 1913 Sanborn map depicts the same configuration, notes that all of the buildings were of concrete block construction, and shows a railroad siding along the east wall of the building. A historic postcard and a January 1910 photograph also show the completed facility).

Operation and Successive Owners of the Factory

The factory began operating in September 1908 and processed tomatoes, ketchup, pork and beans, and sauerkraut. The firm contracted for six hundred acres of tomatoes that year. The cannery operated seasonally, from early summer to late fall, and closed the remainder of the year. In 1910 the company more than doubled the capacity of the plant and contracted for more vegetables from local farmers. It advertised in the Denver Post in the fall of that year for women and men to work at the Brighton factory, promising "good pay." Two years later the company invested $10,000 to add new equipment, including machinery for handling peas. The plant could produce two thousand cases each day of "Green's Sugar Peas." The label brand indicated the change of the company name to the C.H. Green Canning Company. At various times Green owned or controlled five other canneries besides the one in Brighton, including plants in Platteville, Milliken, Pueblo, and Fort Morgan, Colorado, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Green died in April 1914, and the company closed all of his canneries except the one in Brighton. The factory played a significant role in the town's economy that year, paying area farmers $31,000 for vegetables and plant workers $20,000 in wages. The factory produced tomatoes, sauerkraut, peas, green beans, pumpkin, and hominy, packing roughly 75,000 cases of vegetables.

Faced with increasing debts, the business reorganized as the Platte Valley Canning Company in 1916 under the management of Walter E. White, Green's brother-in-law. During World War I Brighton's canneries expanded output and prospered due to the high demand for canned and pickled foods. As part of its World War I effort, Platte Valley Canning sent 14,000 cases of canned tomatoes to France in November 1918. Following the war, the nation experienced a brief recession and canneries witnessed falling prices. Colorado cannery historian Lee Scamehorn described Platte Valley as "a casualty of the recession." In 1921, the company only produced 15,000 cases of peas and did not open during the 1922-24 seasons.

The Fort Lupton Canning Company, headed by Denver financier W.N.W. Blayney, acquired the Platte Valley factory in 1925. The firm was also known as the Blayney Canning Company. A 1929 Brighton Directory reported that Blayney Canning "employs a goodly number of people for several weeks during the summer, canning vegetables grown on nearby farms." Marguerite Counter served as secretary/treasurer of the business in 1935. Business historian William L. Reich concluded the Great Depression "caused most of the smaller [Colorado] canning companies to fail, with only those large enough to weather the financial storm making it to the 1940s, when the Second World War again created a large demand for canned food." The canning factory does not appear to have operated after 1936, but Fort Lupton Canning Company owned the property through 1946.

World War II and German Prisoners of War

The canning factory played an important military role during World War II in 1945 by housing German prisoners of war, who were deployed to work in surrounding agricultural areas. Historian Allen Paschall judged: "From fall 1943 to spring 1946 the POWs were a major factor in the farm-labor force in Colorado." Between 1943 and mid-1946, 422,000 German and Italian military prisoners of war (POWs) were held captive within the continental United States. Given its limited land and manpower to build and operate POW camps, the British government pressed the U.S. to accept POWs after American entry into the war in December 1941. In August 1942 the Roosevelt administration agreed to receive up to 50,000 of the large numbers of German and Italian prisoners taken captive during the North African campaign (1940-43). The surrender of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps in May 1943 "resulted in the wholesale shipment of prisoners to the United States." The POWs were transported to the U.S. aboard troop and supply ships that would otherwise have returned empty and were then taken by railroad to camps operated by the U.S. Army.

The Army established a system of 155 base camps located in forty-five of the forty-eight states. These facilities were required to comply with the provisions of the 1929 Geneva Convention for the housing and treatment of POWs. The permanent base camps held 2,000 to 4,000 POWs and were located on existing military bases, converted New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps or National Youth Administration camps, or purpose-built facilities. Fearing sabotage by escaped prisoners, security considerations required that the camps be located 170 miles inland from the east and west coasts, 150 miles from the borders with Canada and Mexico, and away from shipyards, munitions plants, or other vital industries.

A network of branch (or side) camps supported the base camps. Under the command of the closest base camp, branch camps filled an area's "permanent or temporary work needs as additions to the base camps. The Geneva Convention permitted captors to require enlisted POWs to work. Following an analysis of the Convention's provisions, the War Department issued a policy on the use of POW labor in January 1943: " … any work outside the combat zones not having a direct relation with war operations and not involving the manufacture or transportation of arms or munitions, and not unhealthful, dangerous, degrading, or beyond the particular prisoner's physical capacity, is allowable and desirable." This POW labor helped fill critical manpower shortages resulting from war mobilization.

To effectuate the work program the Army established more than 500 branch camps across the country, each holding from about 100 to 750 prisoners. Branch camps occupied a wide variety of existing facilities, including fairgrounds, armories, hotels, schools, warehouses, gymnasiums, dormitories, and other buildings. These camps placed POWs close to areas where their labor was needed, minimized the risks involved in transporting prisoners, and conserved fuel. Businesses, agricultural interests, and chambers of commerce were invited to petition the War Department for POW labor under guidelines addressing pay and other safeguards under the Geneva Convention. The U.S. Army Provost Marshal General's Office received the task of administering the camps. Colorado was part of the Seventh Service Command headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. The Army and the International Red Cross routinely visited the camps to ensure they were run in adherence with the Geneva guidelines. Historian Arnold Krammer judged: "Prisoners with needed skills could be transferred anywhere and at any time that military or agricultural needs arose, and branch camps were made available or temporarily erected for just that purpose. The arrangement proved remarkably successful."

Colorado housed approximately 17,500 POWs during the war at three main camps located at Camp Carson near Colorado Springs, Trinidad, and Camp 202, eight miles west of Greeley in Weld County. Camp Carson, with 12,000 prisoners, was the largest facility; Greeley contained 3,000 men; and Trinidad interned 2,500. The first prisoners of war to arrive in Colorado were Italians sent to Camp Carson; by the summer of 1943 they were replaced by German POWs. In addition to the main camps the state contained forty-five branch camps located in areas where the POWs could supply agricultural or other types of labor.

Most people on the home front embraced POW labor once it became clear that fears of mass escape or violence were groundless. Although the large base camps included tall barbed wire fences, barrack dormitories, elevated guard towers, and patrol dogs, the branch camps generally reutilized existing buildings. Historian Allen W. Paschal found that "it was relatively easy for prisoners to walk away from the branch work camps, for security was almost nonexistent." A "calculated risk" policy was adopted for the camps due to manpower shortages, with the escape an ever-present possibility. At some Colorado camps prisoners initiated sit-down strikes, which were met with by a "no work, no eat" policy. Strictness in enforcing Army policies varied to some extent based on the camp administrator's approach. Fraternization between camp personnel and the prisoners was prohibited due to security concerns. Despite some civilian fears regarding safety in Colorado, the handful of prisoners who escaped did not commit acts of sabotage and none remained at large in the state after the war ended.

In an article for Colorado Magazine, Paschal described the typical daily life of the POWs. The men awoke to the sound of a bugle at 5:00 a.m., worked during the day, participated in leisure sports, and attended religious services. The Geneva Convention allowed prisoners to wear their military uniforms in camp. Most of the German POWs in Colorado were veterans of Rommel's panzer divisions captured in North Africa, and some continued to wear their light desert uniforms, even in the winter. Prisoners at the Greeley camp published at least two weekly newspapers, with content varying from crossword puzzles and cartoons to literary works and descriptions of places in Colorado. American newspapers and magazines were available, and movies were screened. Prisoners also took classes taught by fellow POWs and correspondence courses. In addition, the Army hoped to politically re-educate the prisoners by distributing books banned by the Nazis, with several Colorado universities offering material from their libraries.

In the early years of the war prisoners received rations similar to American combat soldiers, and German cooks prepared their meals. In 1944 and later the Army initiated "food conservation" measures after the public questioned whether the prisoners were receiving better food than American soldiers. In June 1945 the Brighton Blade complained in an editorial that "it is absurd and ridiculous to favor and pamper German prisoners of war-men who, if they had the opportunity-would continue to inflict their Nazi cruelty and barbarism upon us in payment." The Denver Post reported a prisoner's daily ration in 1945 cost the United States twenty-five cents. POWs sometimes supplemented the restricted fare by covertly brewing the German ales they missed.

German prisoners received payments ranging from forty dollars per month for officers to ten cents per day for enlisted men in the form of credit at local banks or coupons at the camp canteen, with such funds underwritten by the United States. Those who labored "for the benefit of the United States" generally received an additional eighty cents per day. Historian Janet Worrall reported local farmers paid the prevailing wage for each job to the Army, which kept any money above the prisoner's rate of pay to maintain the camp.

The Army considered the agricultural labor provided by prisoners through the Emergency Farm Labor Program an important part of its internment program. Colorado's food production sector experienced extreme manpower shortages during the war, as citizens enlisted in the military and moved to cities to work in war industries. Assembling harvest crews to prevent crops from simply rotting in fields was particularly difficult, thus the branch camps were designed to place workers in the areas of greatest need. After the War Department indicated POWs could work on farms in 1943, the Colorado Extension Service requested a prisoner of war camp near Greeley. Allen Paschal reported that "the Extension Service divided the state into districts to administer the farm-labor program, and it also worked very closely with county agents, county labor organizations, and private firms to coordinate the placement and the utilization of the workers." Janet Worrall found farmers in the Greeley base camp area formed associations that contracted with the Army for prisoners, and county labor boards established wage rates for agricultural work. The use of POWs in the farm-labor program ended on 16^th June 1946.

The Brighton Branch POW Camp

The nearest main POW facility, Camp 202, eight miles west of Greeley, opened in early March 1944. However, POWs housed at Brighton initially came from Camp Carson and were housed in Great Western Sugar dormitories for the 1944 season. For the 1945 season, Camp Carson also supplied the German POWs who arrived in June of that year. The 589 POWs were assigned to quarters in the canning factory, a Great Western Sugar dormitory, and possibly the Brighton Armory. The Army guards for the POWs were billeted in the Armory. The Brighton canning factory received the largest number of prisoners of the three local incarceration sites. Some of the same factors prompting the original construction of the canning factory made it a good candidate for a branch POW facility: large size and durability of the building, location in a dense agricultural area where workers were needed, proximity to primary roads and railroads, and nearness to the main camp. Worrall indicated that communities desiring prisoner labor cooperated with organizations interested in agricultural production to provide quarters for the POWs. For example, Great Western Sugar Company in Greeley helped renovate an unused school and provided showers and latrines. The Army furnished the buildings with cots and other items. Brighton historian Pat Reither reported the land around the Brighton cannery was encircled by barbed wire fencing, and many residents recalled seeing the prisoners playing baseball on the north side of the building. Lt. Francis J. Fitzpatrick, branch camp commander, remarked: "The people of Brighton can best help the maintenance of discipline by avoiding the vicinity of the camp."

The Brighton prisoners were assigned to work on farms in both Adams and Weld counties. Janet Worrall described the general farm labor program workday. Farmers picked up their prisoners at 7 a.m. and returned them to camp within ten hours. The Brighton Blade reported POWs worked six days a week, leaving Brighton at 6 a.m. and working on farms until 6 p.m. The POWs rode in the back of the farmers' trucks, while their guards sat with the drivers or followed in other vehicles. A work crew ranged from two or three to more than a dozen men, depending on the agricultural season and tasks. Farmers could share a group of prisoners who would work on a variety of assigned tasks.

Regulations prohibited conversation among the farm families and prisoners, other than that needed to provide instructions for work. Gifts such as cigarettes and special foods were discouraged. Brighton historian Pat Reither noted the Army did not have enough guards for each work crew, so the farmers had to provide their own security measures. Some farmers, especially those of German heritage, felt sympathy for the POWs' situation and relaxed the rules with their workers, enjoying conversations, supplementing their worker's rations with more and better food, and developing friendships. Janet Worrall described several instances of farm families providing home-cooked meals and snacks for POWs without their guards knowing. Others furnished meals with the tacit acceptance of the guards, many of whom also enjoyed the food prepared by farmers' wives. She found prisoners sometimes returned to camp with bags of fresh vegetables from the farms where they worked. Some local residents and newspapers criticized this "pampering" of German prisoners.

Pat Reither interviewed residents of the Brighton area who remembered the POWs laboring in sugar beet, onion, and potato fields, as well as performing other tasks. The POWs also picked beans. The John Chikuma family engaged about fifteen prisoners to harvest sugar beets and used a farm truck to transport them. A few of the prisoners spoke English, but sign language was employed to tell most of them what work was needed. Reither stated that most of the prisoners had been technicians, artisans, and scholars and needed training to perform farm chores. Eventually, the Extension Service prepared pamphlets in German detailing the farm techniques required for various crops. The Chikuma family described the prisoners as "very helpful and polite."

One local resident recalled bringing workers to his or her farm to work in the sugar beet fields and not being allowed to offer them food. Another said guards indicated he should not give his POW workers water while they toiled in the field, but he responded that while they were on his property he would provide it. Most families discovered that their workers were more productive when they received a home-cooked meal, according to Reither. Ileene and Edward Kerbs, who farmed in Keenesburg, transported as many as thirty prisoners to their farm each day to work in their sugar beet and hay fields. Ileene thought the prisoners' camp-issued lunches consisting of "stale bread with lard and dried up oranges" were "disgusting." She baked bread for the workers each day and gave them jelly, honey, and meatloaf. One prisoner artistically painted scenes on two cardboard boxes for her in appreciation. Worrall also documented cases of prisoners providing small gifts or doing household chores for farm families.

Security measures eased over time, and POWs formed lasting friendships with Brighton-area residents. Bob Reither's family trucked prisoners to their farm, where they conversed in German with his parents and his mother prepared meals the POWs ate in the kitchen with the family. The Brighton POWs worked through the 1945 season; their exact date of departure is uncertain. After the war ended, several Germans formerly incarcerated in Brighton returned for visits, and a few moved to the area permanently.

Later Uses of the Building

The Fort Lupton Canning Company sold the parcel in 1947 to Snelson Properties, who held it briefly before Jack C. Ferguson purchased it in 1950. Ferguson (1912-73) operated a service station and garage in the building to the north, at 238 North Main Street, and used the cannery building for a variety of purposes, including maintenance and storage of school buses for Adams County School District 12. In the early 1950s Ferguson had a concrete ramp installed to the basement of the building and had the corrugated metal projection built to shelter the ramp from inclement weather. School buses were stored in the basement of the factory building by backing them down the ramp. The one-story projection on the rear (east) was also added by Ferguson, most likely in the early 1950s, as were the other concrete ramps to the building's first story. The ramps facilitated Ferguson's use of the factory for storing his extensive collection of antique motor vehicles.

The Platte Valley Rifle and Pistol Association rented the second floor of the factory from Ferguson and constructed a shooting range in the late 1950s. Members refurbished the wood floor, which had sustained water damage and erected a small office where targets were scored. The range included twelve shooting positions with targets 50' distant at the south end of the building. Half-inch thick steel was placed behind the targets with buckets below to collect spent rounds. The club held tournaments here, drawing participants from Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Kansas. Leo L. Avey helped construct the range and stated it was principally used for rifle practice although a few shot pistols. He recalled that if he were shooting from a prone position and a train passed on the tracks to the east "it shook the floor so much that he couldn't hit the target."

After Jack Ferguson died in 1973, his widow, Evelyn, continued to operate the business and painted the exterior of the building silver. In later years, the Veterans of Foreign Wars used it to store bicycles given to needy children at Christmas. According to Pat Reither, Budget Truck Rental was the last business to occupy the building. Mrs. Ferguson continued to own the building until 1998 when she sold it to the Duffy family, the current owners. Garrison Properties of Kansas City plans to convert the now-vacant building into apartments.

Building Description

Brighton's Colorado Sanitary Canning Company is a massive (140' x 73') ornamental concrete block building consisting of the main rectangular factory (120' x 42') constructed in 1908, a two-story ketchup room at the southeast corner dating to between 1913 and 1920, and a one-story projection on the south, built atop a former loading dock dating to the same period. Additions built in the early postwar era include a small early 1950s gabled metal projection on the north wall and a ca. 1948-56 shed roof one-story concrete block component on the rear. At least three types of concrete block finishes are present: rock-faced (resembling natural stone), panel-faced (chamfered edges), and plain-faced (smooth). In addition, the shed-roofed rear component is composed of plain-faced cinderblocks. The rock-faced blocks are the most numerous type used in the factory and measure about 6" x 20". The ornamental concrete blocks were painted silver in the mid- to late-1970s; in places the paint is now missing, revealing the original grayish-tan color of the blocks. Windows and doors have been replaced unless otherwise noted.

The canning factory's west wall along North Main Street is composed of a 20'-long one-story section to the south and a 120'-long two-story section to the north, both constructed of rock-faced ornamental concrete block. The one-story section is the west wall of a shed roof part of the building dating to ca. 1913-20. On the one-story section, the concrete block extends to grade, with no visible foundation. The wall features an original off-center vertical tongue-and-groove wood door near the south end with a concrete sill and lintel. To the north and higher on the wall is a boarded-up window with a concrete sill and lintel; the original window opening was taller as there is an area filled with ornamental concrete blocks with a second lintel above. The top of the wall features slightly projecting concrete coping.

The two-story section (the original 1908 factory) displays a raised poured concrete foundation containing three horizontal window openings, two boarded-up with plywood and one filled with concrete. The first story has eight tall, evenly spaced, fixed four-light wood windows with concrete sills and lintels; the lights are stacked in each window. A 1910 photograph shows six-over-six-light windows in this location. The south portion of the second story contains five roughly square windows with concrete sills and lintels that have been filled with concrete blocks. Multi-light windows and some filled-in windows are shown on the second story in the 1910 photograph. A similar window is located at the north end of the second story and contains a fixed two-light wood window. The top of the wall has a slightly projecting full-width metal box with a metal gutter and three downspouts. The roof is covered with standing seam metal panels.

The north wall of the two-story factory component is also composed of ornamental concrete blocks and rests on a poured concrete foundation. The west part of the first story contains a wood-paneled door partially covered by a "for sale" sign. Areas flanking the door are composed of ornamental concrete blocks and bricks covered with stucco. A one-story slanting ghost line of tar of roofing cement above this area shows where a shed roof component once attached to the wall.

To the east is an early 1950s one-story front gable roof projection about 35' long. The east and west walls are composed of a poured concrete knee wall supporting corrugated metal panel-clad walls; the panels are applied horizontally. The front holds a tall overhead wood panel garage door, while the side walls are blank. The roof is clad with corrugated metal panels and features overhanging eaves. This component shelters a concrete vehicle ramp to the building's basement.

East of the projection is an early 1950s concrete ramp with raised curbs providing access to the first story; the wide entrance has a concrete lintel and wood jambs and contains a wood sliding door clad with flat metal panels that appears to be historic. The second story of the factory section is blank. The east third of the wall is slightly taller than the west part, and both sections feature concrete coping. Flush with the factory's north wall is the north wall of the one-story shed roof addition on the rear of the building. Its north wall is clad with corrugated metal panels and contains two overhead metal sectional garage doors.

On the rear of the building, a long (90' x 31') one-story shed-roofed addition (erected ca. 1948-56) with a concrete foundation is attached to the east wall of the two-story factory component. Its east wall is composed of plain-faced cinderblocks painted white and contains three square window openings that have been filled in with plain-faced concrete blocks. The windows have concrete and wire-drawn brick lintels. The roof is composed of standing seam metal panels applied over corrugated metal. The roof slightly overhangs and wood and L-shaped steel rafter ends are exposed.

The first story of the two-story factory component is hidden by the previously described element. The second story of the factory is composed of rock-faced ornamental concrete blocks and displays two square openings toward the north end filled with plain-faced concrete blocks. Toward the south end are two square window openings with concrete sills and lintels; one has been filled in with plain-faced concrete blocks and the other with panel-faced ornamental concrete blocks. The roof is composed of standing seam metal panels laid over corrugated metal panels. A narrow band of corrugated metal applied horizontally extends across the top of the wall.

Farther south, abutting the factory component and the shed-roofed component is a two-story, roughly square (31' x 30') element with a raised concrete foundation erected ca. 1913-20. Its east wall is composed of poured concrete, with the horizontal lines of successive pours visible. The first story contains a wide door opening filled with plywood. To the south are two three-light fixed windows (the lights are stacked), followed by a one-over-one double-hung window with a metal security grille and a flush wood pedestrian door opening onto wood steps with wood railings. The door opening has been reduced in width with wood paneling infill. The first story of the north wall is not visible; the second story is clad with corrugated metal panels applied vertically.

Beyond this lies the east wall of the one-story shed-roofed component at the south end of the building. Its east wall is composed of poured concrete with the horizontal pour lines visible. The wall contains three three-light fixed windows (lights are stacked) and an electrical service panel. Several small elm trees are growing along this wall and partially obscure it.

A full-width one-story shed-roofed projection (73' x 20') is on the south. In 1908 this was an open concrete platform; it was extended to the east and enclosed ca. 1913-20. The eastern half of the projection has a raised concrete foundation and four non-original overhead sectional corrugated metal garage doors. The second and fourth garage doors from the east feature long concrete ramps (early 1950s); the eastern ramp has raised curbs. The western garage door contains a center flush pedestrian door. The western half of the wall displays a rock-faced ornamental concrete block foundation and features a beveled bay window to the east with a hipped roof and steel casement windows and a band of casement windows to the west. Panel-faced ornamental concrete blocks extend from the tops of the windows to the loading dock lip, below which are rock-faced concrete blocks; the upper part of the wall is clad with flush horizontal boards. The roof is covered with standing seam metal panels and has exposed rafter tails.

The second story at the east end is stuccoed and contains two square window openings that have been filled with plywood. The west part of the second story consists of rock-faced ornamental concrete blocks and displays three square window openings with concrete sills and lintels that have been filled with plywood. The top of this part of the wall has concrete coping.

No machinery associated with canning is present in the building. The first story of the original factory portion of the building is mostly open and retains a concrete floor and two evenly-spaced rows of massive posts with diagonal brackets. The posts measure 11 5/8" x 9 1/2" in thickness, while the braces are 5 1/2" square. An open structure for a freight elevator (no longer present) is located toward the north end of the first story. The ceiling is drywall. Also at the north end of the first story, a flight of wood stairs leads to the second story. The southwest corner contains a partitioned area with a bathroom. The south projection contains a small floor scale abutting the south wall of the factory. A non-original office/vestibule clad in plywood is present at the location of the entrance in the east wall.

The second story of the factory section is also mostly open and features somewhat less substantial wood posts, a lower ceiling, and a wood floor. The south end of the second story still contains targets from the era it housed a shooting range. The north end contains a furnace, space heater, shelving, and a small office with a window and counter.

The large warehouse extending north from the factory building was removed prior to World War II. The additions on the north (early 1950s) and rear (ca. 1948-56) were associated with post-cannery uses. The ornamental concrete block walls were painted in the 1970s. The freestanding factory office to the south was removed between 1948 and 1956. Most windows and doors have been replaced or filled in with concrete block.