Community Corner

Then & Now History Mystery: Is This Kirkland's Original Cannery?

Before the current, historic Kirkland cannery building was built in the 1930s by the WPA, a commercial cannery operated not far away, and this might be the only remaining photo of it.

EARLY RECORDS indicate that well before the Depression-era Works Progress Administraton -- no longer in operation but still standing -- the Kirkland Packing Co. operated a fruit and vegetable cannery not far away.

A Sanborn Map dated around 1926 -- these historic maps were originally used for insurance puproses -- showed the original cannery along the railroad tracks on today's 8th Street, where the city of Kirkland's Operations and Maintenance shops are now. The WPA-built cannery is a couple blocks away, on 8th Avenue.

Thanks to a bit of sleuthing by Kirkland Heritage Society President Loita Hawkinson, what might be the only known photo of the first cannery has been identified, shown above. She is not positive that this photo from the Heritage Society archives is of the original Kirkland cannery, apparently in operation from 1923 until it burned in a fire in the spring of 1931.

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But all the evidence, including scant information that came with the negative of the photo, indicates this might well be the plant. The unknown man in the picture feeding the dogs certainly would appear to be a food worker, apron and all, and the building appears to be a commercial structure, in the same long, rectangular shape of the cannery as shown in the Sanborn Map.

The map indicates its capacity was 650 cases a day, and it operated June to December. The map shows outbuildings for "Hay, Grain & Feed," "Steam Cooking and Kettles," "Box Storage" (2), and "Autos," with the main structure housing a large preparation room and a packing and shipping room.

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Curious, isn't it? Just another of many Kirkland history mysteries.


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