Packing Shed

The Valley’s booming agriculture growth brought on new physical changes for laborers. The California Fruit News predicted the Valley would be responsible for the state’s canned fruits and vegetables in 1919. By 1922, the Santa Clara Valley became the world leader, home to forty canneries and thirty packing houses. By 1930 the Valley had processed thirty percent of California’s annual pack of fruits and vegetables. 

Courtesy of History San Jose. 

Due to such strong growth in the canning industry, Mountain View Japanese based farming partners Yasutaro Oku and newlyweds Masa and Naosuke Tsunmura, known as T.M.O., built their own canning company. Still in a lease with the James Center ranch, where they continued to farm raspberries, strawberries, and tomatoes, T.W.O. operated their Mountain View Canning Company from 1919 to 1921. They canned tomatoes and berries purchased from Japanese farmers based in Mountain View and Sunnyvale. The lease would expire on November 1, 1921, with no legal option for renewal.

When you travel to the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay in the area known as Alviso, you might find remnants of the once Bayside Cannery of Alviso founded by early Chinese businessman Yen Chew. The business would later be taken over by his son Thomas Foon Chew, in the late 1890s. Bayside Cannery was known for packing tomatoes and later other fruits and vegetables, such as asparagus, as well as pioneering many innovative factory methods. During the depression years, Chinese workers lined up outside of packing houses and canneries for work. During these hard times, people could only find work in the packing sheds and farms. 

Gerrye Kee Wong is a fourth-generation Californian who attended Santa Clara Valley schools t, including Lowell, Olinder, and Roosevelt Schools. Here she shares her time working with a friend in the apricot sheds after they were picked from the trees. 

“I was about ten years old. A friend took me. She showed me how the system went. We stood in an outdoor shed. I had never cooked before or held a knife. I cut myself a lot of times. ...That money was very attractive. It was the first time I ever earned money. Growing up in the times of the depression we didn’t have an allowance or money. The apricots were wonderful. After a while, you got to know a really good one. One that was a nice deep orange. After I’d cut it, I’d eat it because that was a precious one. No, I never got sick of them. I love apricots still. I didn’t like the work. It was very hot. I had an apron because it was very messy. I don’t remember talking to anybody there. It was a very lonely thing. Most of the people were older. In those days you were happy to earn money. I never thought any work was demeaning even though it was dirty and there were flies.”