Purity Biscuit Company
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This page was last updated on September 7, 2024.
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Overview
(Salt Lake City)
Nabisco
In April 1885, George Husler became a partner with Henry Wallace in the startup of Utah Cracker Company. Wallace bought out Husler's interest in April 1892, and Utah Cracker Company became American Biscuit & Manufacturing Company. American Biscuit was a major component in the 1898 formation of National Biscuit Company (Nabisco), and the cracker factory at Huslers remained a big customer of rail service throughout the time of its location on State Street.
February 5, 1898
"All the biscuit and cracker companies between Salt Lake City, on the west, Portland, Me., on the east, St. Paul on the north, and New Orleans on the south, will tomorrow morning, be under one management. The name of the new corporation, which was incorporated today in the state of New Jersey, is the National Biscuit company. The new company has purchased all the assets and operating plants of all the bakeries which were controlled by the American Biscuit & Manufacturing company, United States Baking company, and New York Biscuit company." (Salt Lake Herald, February 4, 1898)
In April 1900, National Biscuit Company received a permit to build a brick factory building on Fourth West between Sixth and Seventh South. (Salt Lake Herald, April 15, 1900)
At the time of a news item in 1903, the National Biscuit Company's (Nabisco) plant was located at 442 South Second West. (Deseret News, October 3, 1903)
In 1913 the National Biscuit Company was located on Second West between fourth and Fifth South. There were rumors that the rapidly expanding business would soon mean a new larger factory would be built. The current plant was a two-oven factoty, while the recently finished milllion-dollar factory in Kansas City was a ten-oven factory. The Salt Lake City bakery shipped product to all of Utah, southern Idaho, western Wyoming, eastern Nevada and eastern Oregon. George H. Wallace was son of Utah Cracker company founder Henry Wallace, manager of the Salt Lake City operation. George H. Wallace became manager in September 1915 upon the retirement of Henry Wallace, after his 30 years as manager. (Salt Lake Telegram, December 13, 1913; Salt Lake Tribune, September 5, 1915)
Purity Biscuit
The Purity company's first location in Salt Lake City was at 471 West Fifth South, completed in 1916. (Salt Lake Telegram, March 29, 1929)
"The structure was built in two phases. In 1916, a single story factory was constructed on the corner, followed by a five story addition in 1936. By 1960, time had caught up with the downtown factory, and the company announced closure due to limited space available to expand and remain competitive. The old building was repurposed numerous times over the years, and was ultimately demolished and replaced with the Security Pro Self Storage building that stands today." (James Belmont, Facebook, Rails Through The Wasatch, September 15, 2021)
The Salt Lake City location was closed in 1961.
In 1966, United Biscuit Company, including the former Purity Biscuit company, took the trade name of Keebler Company, named for company founder Godfrey Keebler, who opened his bakery in Philadelphia in 1853.
Timeline
June 1915
The Purity Biscuit Company was incorporated "recently" with capital of $150,000. (American Machinist, Volume 43, Number 1, July 1, 1915, page 76)
June 7, 1916
The formal dedication of the new factory of Purity Biscuit Company was held on on Wednesday June 7, 1916, with 108 local grocers and their families in attendance. The company produced Poinseta-brand crackers and cookies. (Ogden Standard, June 9, 1916)
Control of the Purity Biscuit Company of Salt Lake City was sold in March 1929 to the United Biscuit Company, which had recently acquired numerous smaller companies, and which was one of the country's major biscuit and cracker manufacturers. (Salt Lake Telegram, March 29, 1929)
United Biscuit Company was formed in November 1925 by a group of investment bankers. The first bakeries included the Sawyer Biscuit Company of Chicago, and the Union Biscuit Company of St. Louis. (Salt Lake Telegram, November 22, 1925)
March 29, 1929
Purity Biscuit Company was sold to United Biscuit Company of America, with headquarters in Chicago. The purchase price was reported as exchanging 1500 shares of Purity for 10,000 shares of United, along with $180,000 cash. During 1928, Purity had $659,000 in total sales, with $56,000 in earnings. (Ogden Standard, March 29, 1929)
By 1931, United Biscuit Company was the third largest cookie, cracker, and biscuit baker in the country, operating 15 separate bakeries, with warehouses and distribution centers located between Salt Lake City and Philadelphia. (Salt Lake Telegram, August 6, 1931)
June 20, 1936
Purity Biscuit Company announced a new five-story addition to its existing factory at 471 West 5th South. The addition was to have a front 30 feet wide facing 5th South and extend 140 feet into the block. The addition was to include new ovens. A new shipping department was to have a 70-foot front and also extend 140-feet into the block, making the new addition approximately 100 feet by 140 feet. Total cost of $102,000. (Salt Lake Tribune, June 21, 1936)
As late as 1939, the Purity Biscuit company was advertised as being the only cracker factory between Denver and the Pacific Coast.
July 4, 1939
The following comes from a decision of the National Labor Relations Board, Case No. C-753. Decided July 4, 1939.
Purity Biscuit is a Utah corporation having its office and place of business and operating a manufacturing plant at Salt Lake City, Utah. It is engaged in the business of manufacturing and selling cookies, cakes, and crackers. The materials used by the respondent in the course of manufacture consist of flour, sugar, shortening, and packing cartons. The approximate amounts of such materials used by the respondent during the year 1937 are as follows: 15,000 barrels of flour manufactured for the respondent within the State of Utah from wheat, 80 per cent of which originated outside of the State; 420,000 pounds of sugar, 3 per cent of which was purchased outside of the State; 44,000 pounds of shortening, all of which was purchased within the State; and packing cartons aggregating $30,000 in cost, 60 per cent of which were purchased outside of the State. During the same period, approximately 38 per cent of the respondent's output, valued at $568,706, was sold outside of the State.
(All shipments to and from Purity Biscuit were by rail.)
December 16, 1959
"Verne A. Tracy -- Death this week of Verne A. Tracy, president of the Purity Biscuit Company closes the career one man who followed a Horatio Alger pattern to success. Mr. Tracy started working at the age of 12, left school at 14, and was completely on his own in Denver at the age of 18. After some considerable business experience in Colorado, he came to Salt Lake City and established the Purity Biscuit Company in 1915. From small beginnings this developed into an enterprise distributing its products throughout 11 states, with plants in Pocatello and Phoenix as well as Salt Lake City. Although the business was sold to United Biscuit Company in 1929, Mr. Tracy continued to manage it and became a director of the parent concern." A total of 150 employees would be affected by the closure. (Salt Lake Tribune, December 16, 1959)
March 22, 1960
Purity Biscuit announced that they would discontinue production of bakery goods, including crackers, in Salt Lake City in 1961. Company officials stated that the Salt Lake City location was no longer competitive, being limited by the lack of space to expand. Competing companies had, over the past ten years, also closed their Salt Lake City locations in favor of larger facilities that included modern production facilities, along with space for research, engineering, and quality control. The parent company, United Biscuit, wanted to consolidate operations in other locations closer to national transportation and marketing centers. (Salt Lake Tribune, March 23, 1960)
November 29, 1960
Purity Biscuit announced that the date that production in Salt Lake City would be transferred to other locations, had been moved forward and would be on February 1, 1961. (Salt Lake Tribune, November 30, 1960)
During the first week of February 1961, Purity Biscuit advertised in the classified ads for a warehouse space of between 20,000 and 25,000 square feet, with a truck loading dock. During the first week of July 1961, Purity Biscuit advertised a liquidation sale of all remaining machinery located in its location at 471 West 5th South, including office equipment, copper kettles, storage tanks, blending machines, and stitching and stapling machines.
In 1966, United Biscuit Company, including the former Purity Biscuit company, took the trade name of Keebler Company, named for company founder Godfrey Keebler, who opened his bakery in Philadelphia in 1853.
(Read the Wikipedia article about the Keebler company)
D&RGW Cookie Box
In addition to the Purity Biscuit company in Salt Lake City, the consolidation that created the United Biscuit company in 1925-1929 included regional names such as Strietmann Biscuit Company of Mariemont, Ohio, Hekman Biscuit Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Bowman Biscuit company in Denver. Founded in April 1906 as the Merchants Biscuit company, the Bowman company became part of United Biscuit in 1927 and was renamed Bowman Biscuit on January 1, 1950 in honor of its founder, Clinton A. Bowman. Located just west of D&RGW's North Yard in Denver, the Bowman company became famous among railroad enthusiasts for the D&RGW Cookie Box boxcars of the late 1950s and 1960s.
How the cracker industry came to bloom in Utah
Living history: How the cracker industry came to bloom in Utah
By Eileen Hallet Stone
The Salt Lake Tribune
Published October 11, 2013
Whether they were called biscuits, pilot breads, or crackers — with maritime roots in the form of hardtack — small, flat and crisp baked goods have been a longtime staple of New England larders. In Newburyport, Mass., Theodore Pearson rolled out his version of biscuits in 1792. In 1801, Boston baker Josiah Bent burned his batch with such a crackling, the very sound may have given birth to the American moniker: crackers.
By 1885, the ubiquitous cracker industry had settled in Utah.
That year, confectioner Henry Wallace and business partner George Husler, who owned one of the territory's first flour mills, opened the Utah Cracker Factory. In 1915, V.A. Tracy arrived from Denver to showcase his modern soda cracker firm and its wide-ranging relationship with Utah.
"The Purity Biscuit Company will be a Utah concern," the firm's vice president said in the June 7, 1915, issue of the Salt Lake Telegram. "Every bit of the work that can be done by Utah people will be given [to] them. Every line of goods we require that can be had in Utah will be purchased within this state."
Designed by local architects Walter Ware and Alberto Treganza, the well-lit and sanitary six-story cracker plant was located on the corner of 400 West and 500 South in Salt Lake City. Its biscuits were made from Utah-grown wheat ground in Utah flour mills, shortened with lard from Utah hogs, salted with Great Salt Lake salt, sweetened with Utah-Idaho sugar, cut on machines run by Utah's power and light, baked in commercial ovens heated with Utah coke, and packaged in "sealed-tight, moisture-proof" design-printed paper containers or tins. They were then packed and shipped in crates die-cut by Utah paper box factories and adorned with "Made in Utah" labels.
"Last but not least," Tracy reported at a monthly meeting of the Rotary Club of Salt Lake and reprinted in the April 1919 Utah Payroll Builder, "our product is mixed, baked, packed and shipped north, east, south and west, by Utah sons and daughters who spend their annual payroll of about $125,000 in this village."
Unlike traditional flat-racked bread ovens, soda crackers were placed in immense specialty ovens equipped with reels containing 12 shelves each that went round and round, like a Ferris wheel, and baked the crackers in a "flash heat" process.
"The crackers are peeled on to the oven shelves about 10 feet above the fire," Tracy explained. "The reel is then set in motion and [as it] revolves downward, the cracker comes in contact with the heat below almost immediately."
Motion cracker machines replaced rolling dough out by hand and accelerated the plant's capacity. Continuously revolving cracker ovens daily baked some 50 barrels of flour and produced more than 68,000 soda crackers every 45 minutes.
During World War I, America's soda cracker industry was called upon to aid the war effort by making hardtack for overseas shipment. Inexpensive and long lasting, hardtack was known to survive extreme temperatures, travel and handling.
"Packed in moisture-proof, dirt-proof, rat-proof and mustard-gas proof tins," hardtack, as described by Tracy, was an essential food source for entrenched soldiers. In September 1918, the country's soda cracker industry pledged copious bake runs, revolutionized its baking methods and churned out more than "32 million 8-ounce tins and 10 million 8-ounce cartons of hardtack to feed the boys over there."
Purity's baked good brands were sold throughout the Intermountain West and from New Jersey to California. Among its products were Sodacks, Fig Newtons, Graham Crackers and Poinseta Sodas.
In 1919, the company offered a $50 prize for the best advertising slogan chosen for its Poinseta biscuit product. Some 21,000 suggestions poured in, but 14-year-old Charles Johnson, of Salt Lake City, won with his description: "Bloomin' Good."
"I just couldn't help putting down on paper the way I felt about them," the beaming youth said in the March 19, 1919, Salt Lake Telegram. "They're just so bloomin' good."
Eileen Hallet Stone is the author of her new book, "Hidden History of Utah," a compilation of Living History columns, will soon be in the marketplace.
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