PACIFIC SALMON FISHERIES. 21 



The company had a very short career, ending up in the bank- 

 ruptcy courts in 1903, and when all its affairs were wound up the 

 stockholders received nothino:, wliile the bondholders got but an 

 exceedingly paltry sum out of all the money put into it. 



Most of the canneries secured on Puget Sound were repurchased by 

 their former owners or by new people. 



The Apex Fish Co. was incorporated in 1904 and built a cannery 

 at Anacortes which has been operated continuously since. 



B. A. Seaborg, a well-known Columbia River packer, early in the 

 century established a cannery in South Bellingham and operated it 

 under the name of the Washington Packing Co. In 1905 it was pur- 

 chased by R. A. Welsh, then of Vancouv^er, British Columbia, and 

 Loggie Bros., of Bellingham, and has been operated since under the 

 name of the Bellingham Canning Co. 



The Hillside Canning Co.'s plant was built and operated for the 

 first time at Port Townsend in 1905 by Andrew Weber, H. EUerbeck, 

 William ^IcKee, and E. C. Seeley. 



In 1906 T. J. (iorman, since deceased, purchased the cannery of the 

 Rosario Straits Packing Co. at Anacortes. 



In 1906 E. A. Sims leased the cannery at Port Townsend which 

 had been built some years earlier by Mr. Cook and operated under the 

 name of the Port Townsend Packing ( 'o. 



A one-line cannery was erected in the spring of 1906 by the 

 Wadham-Curtis Canning Co. at Blaine, but it burned down the 

 same year. 



In '1897 the Chlopeck Fish Co. (now the Booth Fisheries Co.), 

 which had been operating in Portland for several years, started a 

 fresh fish and freezing i)usiness at Seattle. 



The first salmon cannery on Puget Sound was erected by Jackson, 

 Myers & Co., in 1877, at Mukilteo, in Snohomish County. The mem- 

 bers of this firm had all been engaged previously in salmon cajining 

 on the C(>luml>ia River. The first pack was of 5,000 cases, composcil 

 wholly of silver, or coho, salmon. Later at this plant were f)ut up 

 the first humpbacks ever canned. In order to div^crt the minds of 

 purchasers from the fact that the meat of the humpback was much 

 lighter in color than the i^rades then known to the consuming public, 

 the company printed on its label the legend, "Warranted not to turn 

 red in the can." Even with this shrewd sizing up of the weak side 

 of the consuming pul)lic the demand for humpback, or j)ink, salmon 

 developed very slowly, and it was some years before it became a 

 factor in the markets. 



Within a year or two after the opening of the above plant another 

 was started at Mukilteo by a man named Bigelow. 



In 1880 the Myers's cannery was destroyed by a heavy fall of snow. 

 It was rebuilt in West Seattle and wasopcrated till 1888, when it 

 was destroyed by fire. George T. Myers, now sole owner, built a new 

 cannery at Milton, which was burned two years later, and lie then 

 came back to Seattle and built a cannery a))out where Ainsworth <it 

 Dunn's dock now stands. He remained here only one season, after 

 which he moved to where the Pacilic Coal Co.'s bunkers are now. 

 Late in 1901 he sold out his j)lant to the United Fish Co., which com- 

 pany moved the plant to the foot of Connecticut Avenue, where they 

 continued operations for two or three years and then quit. 



