Title: Falls Canning Company Records
Inclusive Dates: 1911-1963

Creator:

• Falls Canning Company (Oconto Falls, Wis.)

Call Number: Green Bay Mss 50

Quantity: 5.6 c.f. (14 archives boxes)

Repository:

Housed at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Archives and Area Research Center; owned by the Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

UW-Green Bay Cofrin Library / Green Bay Area Research Ctr. (Map)

Abstract:

Records of the Falls Canning Company, a small, community-based vegetable canning firm. Included are corporate and financial records and correspondence and subject files with information on operations, acreage and types of crops contracted, prices, production problems, marketing, and other topics. Also included are records of the related Pulaski Canning Company.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-gb0050

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Local businessmen and growers organized and incorporated the Falls Canning Company of Oconto Falls, Wisconsin, in 1911. Eighty-one individuals purchased 185 of the original 200 shares of stock offered at 100 dollars per share. In 1919, the shareholders voted to increase the capital stock to 50,000 dollars and to declare a 50 percent dividend.

The Falls Canning Company contracted with farmers to grow corn and beans and to sell their crops to the cannery for packing in tin cans. The Company also advanced seed to growers. In addition to corn and beans, the Company at various times also packed beets and other vegetables. The Company sold its products under its own labels and under many other brand names, primarily to major food distributors and supermarket chains in the upper Midwest. In later years, it relied on food brokerage firms and packers' sales agents for most of its marketing operations.

In 1927, many stockholders and directors of the Falls Canning Company organized the Pulaski Canning Company, with a capital stock of 50,000 dollars. Located sixteen miles south of Oconto Falls in the Village of Pulaski, the new firm's operations were very similar to those of the Falls Canning Company. After 1927, the Boards of Directors of the two firms met jointly and annually appointed one manager to operate both plants. The firms kept separate books, however, and maintained their own legal identities. The Pulaski Canning Company sold its plant to the Fruit Growers Cooperative of Sturgeon Bay in 1962 and the corporation dissolved.

In the 1950s, the Falls Canning Company faced growing financial problems. In late 1959, the firm wrote to the growers whose crops it had purchased to inform them that it was unable to pay them until after the end of the year. The letter explained that over the past three or four years, the Company had found it difficult to market its entire pack but that it hoped to improve its marketing by employing a new sales agency. The same year, the Falls Canning Company negotiated a loan of 80,000 dollars through the Small Business Administration. In 1960, the firm packed 30,358 cases of beans and 22,933 cases of corn; it reported total assets of 238,778 dollars and gross sales of nearly 350,000 dollars. However, the firm also showed a net operating loss for the year of 8,768 dollars. Three years later, in early 1963, the Board of Directors of the Falls Canning Company announced its decision to cease operations, explaining that present market prices for commodities made profitable operations impossible.

The records of the Falls Canning Company document the history of a small, community-based manufacturing firm. During the twentieth century, canning became an important Wisconsin industry. In 1958, the state had about 120 canning plants employing some 40,000 people; the state was first in the nation in production of canned sweet corn and third in beans (Wisconsin Blue Book, 1958). During this period, the canning industry underwent major technological and economic changes, including mechanization, drastic shifts in consumer tastes, greater government regulation, new patterns of retailing food products, and consolidation of production in a smaller number of very large firms. This collection documents some of these changes and their impact on the operation of one small, probably typical, canning company. The collection has two marked weaknesses. For the years before the mid-1950s, only summary information is found; and throughout the collection there is virtually no information about labor or working conditions in the cannery.

The records of the Falls Canning Company are organized in three series: corporate records, correspondence and subject files, and financial records. Records of the Pulaski Canning Company are interspersed within these three series.

The CORPORATE RECORDS, 1911-1963, include articles of incorporation of the Falls and Pulaski companies and minutes of the Board of Directors' and annual stockholders' meetings. The minutes include information on company financial conditions and operations and on the total acreage and types of crops contracted. Although most of the minutes are sketchy, those for 1941-1955 include detailed annual reports to the stockholders by C.W. Carlson, the company manager and corporate secretary, discussing crop and price conditions, production problems, and other operational details. Also in this series are stock certificate books recording purchases and transfer of corporation stock, and one folder of certificates, deeds, and miscellaneous legal documents.

Among the more significant materials in the CORRESPONDENCE AND SUBJECT FILES, 1949-1963, is the correspondence with firms selling Falls Canning Company products, including Charles Lachman and Leininger and Company, both of Chicago, and Larry J. La Marre of the Tast-D-Lite Company of Milwaukee. This correspondence documents the firm's marketing difficulties. The files for the National Canners Association, the Wisconsin Canners Association, the Federal Trade Commission, and for state and federal tax returns contain summary statistical and financial information reported by the firm. Monthly financial reports of the Falls Canning Company, 1956, 1958-1965, and of the Pulaski Canning Company, 1958-1962, are filed under the names of the companies. A few samples of Falls Canning Company labels are in the folders “labels” and “label orders.”

The FINANCIAL RECORDS, 1930-1963, include appraisals and audits of the properties and financial operations of both the Oconto Falls and Pulaski operations. The bank loan record book documents the growing reliance of the Falls Canning Company on outside capital as its operations grew larger. The journals, ledgers, and trial balances provide detailed information on the firm's sales, its production costs, its relationships with growers, and its financial management. The inventory control cards record the progress - sometimes over many years - in disposing of the annual packs.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Howard Lehner, Oconto Falls, Wisconsin, July 2, 1968. Accession Number: M68-202

Processing Information

Processed by J. Sorenson and John Fleckner, June 7, 1977.

	Series: Corporate Records
Box   1 Folder   1	Articles of Incorporation, 1927, 1931, 1933
Box   1 Folder   2-6	Minute Books, 1911-1961
	Stock Certificate Books
Box   2 Folder   1-5	1911-1948
Box   3 Folder   1	1948-1963
Box   3 Folder   2	Miscellaneous Documents, 1911-1931, 1957, 1962
	Series: Correspondence and Subject File	⇧
Box   4 Folder   1	A-General, 1959-1962
Box   4 Folder   2	American Can Company, 1956, 1959-1963
Box   4 Folder   3	Ansorge Emery, 1959-1963
Box   4 Folder   4	Associated Seed Growers, 1959
Box   4 Folder   5	B-General, 1958-1962
Box   4 Folder   6	Bergstrom, J.E., 1959
Box   4 Folder   7	Biddle Purchasing Company, 1959-1962
Box   4 Folder   8	Bills of Lading, 1959
Box   4 Folder   9	C-General, 1958-1962
Box   4 Folder   10	Canners Service Incorporated, 1959
Box   4 Folder   11	Chisholm-Ryder Company, 1958-1961
Box   4 Folder   12	Continental Can Company, 1957-1959, 1963
Box   4 Folder   13	Country Gardens Incorporated, 1959-1962
Box   4 Folder   14	D-General, 1959-1962
Box   4 Folder   15	Dernehl-Taylor Company, 1960
Box   4 Folder   16	Doblratz, Louis, Company, 1959
Box   4 Folder   17	E-General, 1959-1963
Box   4 Folder   18	Elliott, Howard, 1957-1962
Box   4 Folder   19	Excel Wholesale Grocery Company, 1952-1957
Box   5 Folder   1	F-General, 1958-1963
Box   5 Folder   2	Fall River Canning Company, 1959-1961
Box   5 Folder   3	Falls Canning Company, 1949 - (1960-1962)
Box   5 Folder   4	Inventory, 1959-1961
Box   5 Folder   5	Monthly Reports, 1956, 1958-1963
Box   5 Folder   6	Stockholders, 1959, 1961
Box   5 Folder   7	Federal Trade Commission, 1960-1963
Box   5 Folder   8	Ferry-Morse Seed Company, 1959
Box   5 Folder   9	Fink, Harvey H., and Company, 1958-1962
Box   5 Folder   10	Food Industries Federation of Mutual Insurance Companies, 1958, 1960, 1963
Box   5 Folder   11	Food Machinery and Chemical Corporation, 1955-1961
Box   5 Folder   12	G-General, 1959-1963
Box   5 Folder   13	Garell Brokerage Company, 1958-1959
Box   5 Folder   14	Government Order Information, 1959
Box   6 Folder   1	Great American Tea Company, 1959-1963
Box   6 Folder   2	Growers, 1959-1962
Box   6 Folder   3	Gustafson Brokerage Company, 1959, 1961-1963
Box   6 Folder   4	H-General, 1959-1962
Box   6 Folder   5	Hagan, Clark, 1958-1959
Box   6 Folder   6	Hansen Canning Company, 1959-1960
Box   6 Folder   7	I-General, 1958-1959
Box   6 Folder   8	Industrial Commission of Wisconsin, 1959-1962
Box   6 Folder   9	Insurance Inspection, 1959
Box   6 Folder   10	J-General, 1961-1963
Box   6 Folder   11	K-General, 1959-1963
Box   6 Folder   12	Kieckhefer-Eddy Corporation, 1959-1960
Box   6 Folder   13	Krier Preserving Company, 1959-1961
Box   6 Folder   14	L-General, 1959-1963
Box   6 Folder   15	Labels, undated
Box   6 Folder   16	Label Orders, 1959, 1963
	Lachman, Charles
Box   6 Folder   17	1951, 1955
Box   6 Folder   18	1956-1957 and undated
Box   6 Folder   19	LaMarre, Larry J., and Company, 1959, 1963
Box   6 Folder   20	Larson Company, 1958-1959, 1963
Box   6 Folder   21	Lehner, Howard, 1959-1961
Box   7 Folder   1	Leininger and Company, 1959, 1961-1963
Box   7 Folder   2	Loan Information, 1958-1963
Box   7 Folder   3	M-General, 1956, 1958-1962
Box   7 Folder   4	Meinrath Brokerage Company, 1960, 1962
Box   7 Folder   5	Milwaukee Cheese Company, 1959
Box   7 Folder   6	N-General, 1959, 1961
Box   7 Folder   7	National Canners Association, 1958-1963
Box   7 Folder   8	National Starch Products Incorporated, 1959
Box   7 Folder   9	Northland Associate Grocers Incorporated, 1959-1960
Box   7 Folder   10	Northrup, King and Company, 1959-1963
Box   7 Folder   11	Northwestern-Hanna Fuel Company, 1953, 1955, 1959-1963
Box   7 Folder   12	Nygren, H.W., and Associates, 1959
Box   7 Folder   13	O-General, 1959-1961, 1963
Box   7 Folder   14	P-General, 1959-1962
Box   7 Folder   15	Packing Orders, 1962
Box   7 Folder   16	Plee-Zing Incorporated, 1959
	Pulaski Canning Company
Box   7 Folder   17	Correspondence, 1959
Box   7 Folder   18	General, 1958-1959
Box   7 Folder   19	Inventory, 1958-1959
Box   7 Folder   20	Financial Reports, 1958-1962
Box   8 Folder   1	Stockholders Materials, 1959-1962
Box   8 Folder   2	R-General, 1955, 1959-1963
Box   8 Folder   3	Riedinger-Jones-Fehlmann Brokerage Company, 1959
Box   8 Folder   4	Roehl, F.C., and Company, 1959
Box   8 Folder   5	Russell Brokerage Company, 1959
Box   8 Folder   6	S-General, 1959-1963
Box   8 Folder   7	Saint Paul Terminal Warehouse Company, 1958-1959
Box   8 Folder   8	Seed Contracts and Orders, 1958-1961, 1963
Box   8 Folder   9	Sergeants and Micholoy, 1959
Box   8 Folder   10	Seymour State Bank, 1960-1962
Box   8 Folder   11	Smith, Clarence W., and Associates, 1959-1962
Box   8 Folder   12	Stearns-Whitemore Company, 1959
Box   9 Folder   1	Stein Brokerage Company, 1959-1963
Box   9 Folder   2	T-General, 1959-1961
	Taxes
Box   9 Folder   3	Local, 1920-1928, 1959-1962
Box   9 Folder   4	Federal, 1955-1962
Box   9 Folder   5	State, 1955-1962
Box   9 Folder   6	Tendersweet Sales Corporation, 1959-1960
Box   9 Folder   7	Topco Associates Incorporated, 1959-1962
Box   9 Folder   8	U-General, 1959-1962
Box   9 Folder   9	United States Department of Agriculture, 1959-1962
Box   9 Folder   10	V-General, 1959-1962
Box   9 Folder   11	W-General, 1959-1962
Box   9 Folder   12	Wisconsin Canners Association, 1958-1962
Box   9 Folder   13	Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, 1959-1962
Box   9 Folder   14	Wisconsin Domestic Corporation Reports, 1957-1963
Box   9 Folder   15	Workers, 1959
Box   9 Folder   16	Z-General, 1960, 1962
	Series: Financial Records	⇧
	Appraisals
	Falls Canning Company
Box   10 Folder   1	1928
Box   10 Folder   2	1934
Box   10 Folder   3	1953
	Pulaski Canning Company
Box   10 Folder   4	1928
Box   10 Folder   5	1934
	Audits
Box   11 Folder   1	Falls Canning Company, 1958-1959, 1961-1962
Box   11 Folder   2	Pulaski Canning Company, 1955, 1958, 1960
Box   11 Folder   3	Bank Loan Record, 1941-1963
	Trial Balances
Box   11 Folder   4	1958-1961
Box   11 Folder   5	1961-1963
	Journals
Box   11 Folder   6	Cash Receipts, 1958-1963
Box   11 Folder   7	General Accounts, 1950-1963
Box   13 Folder   1	Accounts Receivable, 1957-1963
	Ledgers
Box   14 Folder   1	Disbursements, 1959-1962
	Sales Accounts
Box   13 Folder   2	1930-1962
Box   15 Folder   1	1954-1959
Box   12 Folder   1	Grower Accounts, 1962
Box   12 Folder   2	Inventory Control Cards, 1957-1961