It’s probable that the four folks posing on the loading dock at the south end of the building are factory employees.  The man appears to be sporting a woman’s hat—maybe it’s Friday afternoon.

Owned by the Wilmore Canning Company (note the words “Wilmore” and “Colorado Beauties” on the lintels of the two doors to the left of the people) the factory was constructed in 1908 following the destruction by fire of the company’s Denver factory  the previous year.   With the loss of its Denver factory, the company decided to relocate to an area closer to its sources of produce and chose Brighton. 

Initially referred to as the Wilmore Canning Factory,  by the time the factory opened in 1908 it had been renamed the Colorado Sanitary Canning Company.  This reflected the end result of a legal dispute between company president John T. Wilmore and primary stockholder Charles H. Green.  Green won the dispute in court, and it was his decision to give the factory its new name.     

The concrete blocks used for the factory’s walls were  made by local entrepreneur C. C. Cole.  Each had two air holes in the center for insulation purposes.  As you can see, the blocks used here were ornamental, shaped to resemble stones.   It was unusual at that time for a factory to be built with this type of ornamentation.   The blocks were made of available cement, sand, and gravel, were reportedly fireproof and offered a durable and attractive alternative to brick and wood.    Priced at fifteen to twenty-five cents per block, the units were larger than bricks, less expensive and made for faster wall construction.  

There was great excitement around the opening of the factory in late summer of ‘08.  Hailing the opening as “the greatest industrial event in the history of Brighton,” the Brighton Blade newspaper went on to provide interesting details about the place.  The cost of construction and installed canning machinery was about $50,000, the building was lit by its own power plant, and the water used in canning was supplied by an artesian well on the property.  At full force, the factory would employee 250 to 300 people.  The Blade reported, “The plant is what is known as a three-line plant, and has an estimated capacity of 210 cans per minute. It is equipped to can or process tomatoes, catsup, pork and beans, peas and sauerkraut. Every arrangement conducive to sanitary perfection in operation of the factory has been adopted.”

Notwithstanding the publicity surrounding the opening of the place, it certainly wasn’t the only commercial agricultural facility in Brighton.   There was the  Brighton Creamery, established in 1883; the Brighton Canning Company, established in 1889 as the first canning factory in Brighton and Adams County; and in 1899 a cheese factory was built in Brighton which operated for decades.  The Kuner company of Denver located its pickle facility in Brighton and in 1917 moved its entire operation to Brighton.  In 1906, a sugar beet refinery was built in Brighton to produce syrup, but closed after a few years.  In 1917,  the Great Western Sugar Company opened a sugar factory there that operated until 1977.

Around 1912, the Wilmore Canning Factory was renamed the C.H. Green Canning Company, as indicated in the photo.    The loading dock you see in the photo was overtaken sometime between 1913 and 1920 when an extension was built to the south end of the building.   During that same period a two-story ketchup room was added on the southeast corner.

It appears that the factory prospered.  By 1910, it had doubled its capacity and contracted for more vegetables from local farmers.  Two years later, it invested $10,000 in new equipment, enabling increased production, which included 2,000 cases per day of “Green’s Sugar Peas.” 

At various times, C.H. Green controlled five other canneries.  Four were in Colorado — Platteville, Milliken, Pueblo, and Fort Morgan — and one was in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

C. H. Green died in April of 1914.  That same year, his factory’s financial and production figures  illustrate the factory’s contributions to the local economy, i.e., payment of $31,000 to area farmers for vegetables and $20,000 in wages paid to factory employees.  That year, the factory produced roughly 75,000 cases of vegetables, including tomatoes, sauerkraut, peas, green beans, pumpkin, and hominy.

By 1916, the factory was facing rising costs, and, under the management of Walter E. White, Green’s brother-in-law, it was reorganized as the Platte Valley Canning Company.  Then the increased demand for canned and pickled food during World War I brought temporary prosperity.  In 1918, Platte Valley Canning shipped 14,000 cases of canned tomatoes to France.  

Following the war, recession brought falling prices, and canneries were hit hard, including Platte Valley Canning.  The factory didn’t even open during the 1922-24 seasons.  In 1925, Platte Valley Canning was bought by the Fort Lupton Canning Company, which was headed by Denver financier William N. W. Blaney.  (I have an old Fort Lupton Canning Company can labeled “Blayney’s Tomatoes.”)  The Brighton factory operated until 1936, but was owned by Fort Lupton Canning through 1946. 

In 1945, the factory building housed 589 German prisoners of war, serving as a branch camp to  the area’s main POW facility in Greeley.    It was ideally suited for this purpose, given its size, its durability of construction, location in a dense agricultural area where workers were needed and proximity to primary roads and railroads.  The Brighton prisoners were assigned to work on farms in Adams and Weld County. Farmers normally picked up their assigned prisoners at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning and returned them 10 to 12 hours later.  The POW’s rode in the back of farmers’ trucks, while the guards sat with the driver or followed in another vehicle.  Some of the POW’s formed lasting relationships with local residents.  Brighton farmer Bob Reither’s family trucked POW’s to their farm to perform work, but the prisoners also conversed in German with Bob’s parents and ate meals prepared by his mother.    The POWs in Brighton worked through the 1945 season.   Several Germans formerly incarcerated in Brighton reportedly returned for visits, with a few moving permanently to the area.

Following the war, the factory building saw several incarnations.  One of its first was as a school bus storage area for the Brighton School District (the building’s owner at that time was Jack Ferguson, and locals referred to the place as “Ferguson’s Armory”).    It later housed an indoor rifle range operated by the Platte Valley Rifle & Pistol Association, was a storage area for the Veterans of Foreign Wars and served as a Budget truck rental.

If you go into Google maps at www.google.com/maps and enter 224 North Main Street, Brighton,  if your view is like mine, you’ll see the old factory building, whitish-silver in color, ahead on the right.   You of course can arrow forward to get closer to the building.  The building you’ll see is about half the factory’s original length.   It was halved following the end of World War II, when warehouse space on its north end was demolished.   

I was impressed to learn that the building is on the National Register of Historic Places of the U.S. Department of Interior’s National Park Service.  It meets two of it criteria:  Criterion A, for its significance in military history as part of a nationwide network of World War II prisoner-of-war camps; and Criterion C, for its “architecture as a rare surviving local example of an industrial building (a canning factory) built of ornamental concrete block.”  

REFERENCES:

• www.ancestry.com

• “Brighton Historic Resources Survey: Phase I Survey Report – June 2014,”  by Deon Wolfenbarger,  Three Gables Preservation,  Nederland, Colorado, at https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/DownloadFile/564961

• ‘City of Brighton Historic Landmarks: PROPERTIES ON THE LOCAL, STATE, OR NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES” at  https://www.brightonco.gov/DocumentCenter/View/14916/Designated-Properties-FINAL-42518?bidId=

• “Colorado Sanitary Canning Factory,” Colorado Encyclopedia, at   https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-sanitary-canning-factory

• “Colorado Sanitary Canning Factory,” National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, National Park Service, at https://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/pdfs/16000073.pdf

• “CROSSROADS IN EDEN: THE DEVELOPMENT OF FORT LUPTON, 1835-2000,” prepared by Adam Thomas, October 2003, at https://www.fortlupton.org/DocumentCenter/View/398/Crossroads-to-Eden?bidId=

• “The story behind Brighton’s historic, now-demolished smokestack,” Denver Post, February 12, 2017, at https://www.denverpost.com/2017/02/12/historic-smokestack-brighton-demolish/

• “64 FARMSTEADS HISTORIC SURVEYS PHASE II — Intensive and Reconnaissance-level Surveys — Brighton Vicinity, Adams County/Weld County, Colorado,”  by Terracon Consultants, April 2016, at https://www.brightonco.gov/DocumentCenter/View/11241/64-Historic-Farmsteads-Report_Draft_April-15-2016