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 nothing, while 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 Vancouver, 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. Ellerbeck, 
William McKee, and E. C. Seeley. 
In 1906 T. J. Gorman, 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 Co. 
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 business 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 canning 
on the Columbia River. The first pack was of 5,000 cases, composed 
wholly of silver, or coho, salmon. Later at this plant were put up 
the first humpbacks ever canned. In order to divert the minds of 
urchasers from the fact that the meat of the humpback was much 
ighter in color than the grades 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 public the demand for humpback, or pink, 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 was operated 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 he then 
came back to Seattle and built a cannery about where Ainsworth & 
Dunn’s dock now stands. He remained here only one season, after 
which he moved to where the Pacific Coal Co.’s bunkers are now. 
Late in 1901 he sold out his plant 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. 
