Minnesota Canneries
Posted by: 
BruceS
N 43° 59.178 W 093° 15.452
15T E 479347 N 4870383
Historical marker located at rest stop on I-35 south commemorating the canning industry of southern Minnesota.
Waymark Code: WM2R64
Location: Minnesota, United States
Date Posted: 12/12/2007
Views: 42
Minnesota Canneries
Early settlers grew bumper wheat crops on south Minnesota's fertile
prairies, land that today supplies produce for a thriving
270-million-dollar-a-year canning industry.
Sweet corn canneries opened in Austin and Mankato in the early 1880s,
followed soon after by similar factories in Faribault, Owatonna, and LeSueur.
Soon Minnesota's canners were experimenting with new technologies and new
products, and in 1903 the automated Big Stone Cannery Company founded by F.W.
Douthitt changed the industry nationwide. Douthitt's plant in Ortonville
had a conveyor system, mechanical corn husking machines, and a power driven
cutter that produced the first whole kernel canned corn. The Green Giant
Company, introduced golden cream-style corn in 1924 and the first vacuum packed
corn in 1929.
Corn is still the major canning crop in Minnesota. The state's more
than thirty plants also freeze and can peas, beans, carrots, tomatoes, pork,
beef, chicken products, and such unusual items as rutabagas. Mankato was
the site of the nation's first carp cannery in 1946. ~ text of marker