The Columbus Canning Company was incorporated in December 1900 with a capital of $30,000 and 86 stockholders, none of whom were permitted to subscribe to more than $500.00. William C. Leitsch, the mayor of Columbus, was elected president and manager of the company, and he continued in this position until his death on April 18, 1923.
Other company management included Frank A. Stare, who worked for the company as processor and superintendent until 1902, when he left to work for the Waukesha Canning Company. Stare returned in 1908. In 1924 he was named general manager; in 1929 he became president as well as continuing as general manager.
In its first years the company packed peas, corn, pumpkin, and tomatoes. Later it expanded its capacity and eventually specialized in packing peas, although it continued canning corn, especially at its Shelbyville plant. Branch plants were added at Juneau (1912), Horicon (1920), and Evansville, Wisconsin (1929); Shelbyville, Indiana (1929); and Lawrence, Kansas (1930). From 1934 to 1937, Columbus leased a canning plant at Elba, Wisconsin, and in 1934 it experimented with growing winter peas in McAllen, Texas.
Because the company's charter was not sufficiently broad to permit out-of-state branch operations the company was reorganized under the laws of Delaware as the Columbus Food Corporation with J. W. Kieckhofer as president and Frank A. Stare as vice-president and general manager. On April 30, 1946 the Columbus Foods Corporation merged with Stokely Van Camp Inc.
The company management actively participated in state, regional, and national canners associations, serving as officers and committee members. They were also frequent contributors to trade journals and Fred A. Stare was the author of The Story of Wisconsin's Great Canning Industry (1949), a detailed history of the company and the canning industry in Wisconsin. Leitsch and Stare also served on federal committees concerned with wartime production and interstate trade regulations.
