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PACIFIC SALMON FISHERIES. 137 
The freezing of salmon and steelhead trout began on the Sacra- 
mento and Columbia Rivers in the late eighties. It was taken up 
in a small way on Puget Sound in 1892. That year Wallace Bros. 
and Ainsworth & Dunn froze a small lot, the work being done for them 
by the Seattle Iee Co. (now the Ice Delivery Co.), and the venture was 
so successful that the next year nearly all of the wholesale dealers on 
the Sound took up the business. The Crescent Creamery, of Tacoma, 
also engaged in the business for the fish dealers for a year or two 
shortly thereafter. In 1902 the British Columbia Packers’ Asso- 
ciation bought a large cold-storage plant at New Westminster, 
British Columbia, at that time the only large and modern plant 
in the Province, and began the active freezing of fish. Since then 
a number of excellent plants have been built and operated. In 
Alaska the preparing of frozen salmon began in 1902. The San Juan 
Fishing & Packing Co., soon to be succeeded by the Pacific Cold 
Storage Co., put up a cannery and cold-storage plant at Taku Harbor, 
in southeast Alaska, in 1901, though it did not operate the cold- 
storage portion until 1902. The Taku Harbor Canning & Cold 
Storage Co. later on succeeded to the ownership and operation of 
this plant. This is the only plant which was operated in Alaska 
until the New England Fish Co. erected in 1909 a large plant at 
Ketchikan for the freezing of halibut primarily, but considerable 
quantities of salmon have been frozen also. 
In 1911 the schooner Metha Nelson was fitted up as a floating 
freezer by the Alaska Packers Association and sent to Kodiak Island. 
As the vessel arrived in San Francisco shortly before the State’s 
closed season on salmon began, and it was a difficult matter to dispose 
of the catch before then, the business was abandoned. 
In 1912 J. Lindenberger (Inc.) opened a freezing plant at Craig, 
on Fish Egg Island, Alaska, while the ship William H. Smith was 
outfitted as a floating cannery and freezer by the Weiding & Inde- 
pendent Fisheries Co., at Saginaw Bay, Alaska. The latter operated 
only one season. 
The year 1913 saw quite a development in the industry. The 
Columbia & Northern Fishing & Packing Co., at Wrangell, the Juneau 
Cold Storage Co., at Juneau, the Bocill Fisheries Co., at Sitka, and 
the floating cold-storage ship Glory of the Seas, by the Glacier Fish 
Co., at Idaho Inlet, were all started this year. 
In 1914 the Ketchikan Cold Storage Co. opened a freezer for the 
general commercial freezing of fish. 
In 1917 the San Juan Fishing & Packing Co. built and operated a 
oeees peat at Seward. 
In 1918 Henry Goemaere operated for the first time a plant at 
Washington Bay; while the National Independent Fisheries Co. and 
the Trout Fisheries Co. froze salmon at Ketchikan. All the other 
freezers operated as usual, the only change being the purchase by 
Libby, McNeill & Libby of the cold-storage plant and cannery of the 
Taku Harbor Canning & Cold Storage Co. at Taku Harbor. 
The freezing of salmon is almost invariably carried on in connection 
with other methods of handling and preserving, and the purpose is 
usually to secure the fish when numerous and cheap, freeze them, and 
then hold them until the runs are over and the fish are once more 
in good demand at high prices. The business proved so profitable, 
