Muirhead Cannery History

A friend in town gave me a copy of Rufus Muirhead's obituary from the February 22,1942 The Dalles Optomist Newspaper. I found the information very interesting. I hope you enjoy learning a little history of the cannery as well. First the obituary:

Funeral services for Rufus R. Muirhead, 54, and native of Minnesota, who died Sunday night at a local hospital, were held at the Zell funeral home Thursday afternoon at 2:30,

the Rev. Lloyd T. Anderson, pastor of the Calvary Baptist church, officiating. Internment followed at the Odd Fellows Cemetery.

Mr. Muirhead, who resided on a Mill Creek ranch, had been engaged a number of years in the development of prune processing and canning. He and his son-in-law, James R. Barrett, won note for prune juice, maraschino cherries and tenderized canned dried prunes.

Mr. Muirhead is survived by his widow, Alice; five daughters, Mrs. James C. Barrett of The Dalles and the Misses Bessie, Mary, Alice and Katherine Muirhead of Seattle; a son, Samuel A. of Johnstown, R.I.; four sisters, Mrs. Flossie Ranger and Mrs. James A. Herndron of Seattle, Mrs. Lou H. Schueler of Vancouver, Wash., and Mrs. C.H. Marsdon of Culver City, Calif.; a brother, Percy A. Muirhead of College Place, Wash; and one grandchild.

The information in this obituary piqued my interest and so I called up Randy Barrett (he was referenced in the obituary as the "one grandchild") to ask some further questions.

How The Cannery Got Its Start

Randy's father was James R. Barrett, Rufus's son-in-law, who was listed in the obituary as working with Rufus Muirhead. Randy said that his father owned the property that was used for the prune drying and canning operation but that he wasn't involved more than that. This property was North of the current cannery location on Mill Creek.  

After Rufus passed away, his wife Alice kept the business going as best she could. During WWII she struggled to get boxes, cans and sugar as these were all items that were rationed. Randy remembers that she would sell "simple syrup" , sugar that has been dissolved in hot water, when she could get the supplies. Randy said that Sam Muirhead, Rufus's son, worked for Boeing before the war and then joined the Navy and went off to war.

When Sam Muirhead came back from the war he was tired of taking orders, he said "I'm going to work for myself even if I starve." Sam claimed that a couple of the years he did almost starve. Sam and his sister Betty, a nurse in Hawaii during the war, took over the cannery from their mother, Alice, and worked to get it running again. Alice worked at the cannery until just a few years before her death. I don't know when Betty left the canning business, but at a certain point it was just Sam. Sam Muirhead sold the cannery to his nephew Randy Barrett in the mid 1970's. I bought the cannery from Randy in 2006.

I find this all so interesting and hopefully you'll enjoy learning a little more about how our small family-owned cannery got its start.

Cannery Updates - 2022 Exhaust Box

Cannery Updates in Process

I am starting to work on getting the cannery ready for the coming season. I have the usual maintenance items; steam leaks, bearing replacements, gasket replacements, vehicle service and so on. I also have two larger improvements that I would like to make. The first improvement needed is to simplify the exhaust box. 

The exhaust box is a large metal box (4’W x 16’L) the cans travel though just before the can lid is put on. The purpose of this box is to allow air bubbles inside the can to jiggle out and to heat up the can before the lid goes on. This initial heating helps the can to pull a vacuum (sucking the top of the lid down) after the can is cooked and then cooled.

Exhaust box

 The cans make five passes through the exhaust box on six inch wide polypropylene chain. There are round metal disks at the end of each pass to turn the cans around and to start them going the opposite direction. These disks add a great amount of complexity to the exhaust box. Most of the problems I had with breakdowns in 2021 were related to this box and these disks specifically. My plan is to remove the disks and to make it so the cans slide directly from one belt to the next when they are changing direction. Fingers crossed but I think this will work.

Update: March 15th, 2022

We are continuing to tear apart the exhaust box which moves the cans through the canning process. Here are a couple pictures of the pieces removed and the end cut off of the exhaust box. I have almost removed everything that needs to come off and was marveling at the pile of parts. In the picture of parts there are sprockets that drive "combine chain", a sprocket for roller chain and a motorcycle transmission. It really is amazing to see the creativity of an earlier generation "getting it done" and it is time to start putting it back together.

Looks like you could build a bike out of the Exhaust Box parts!

While I was taking things apart I decided to change out the drive system for the exhaust box. I will replace the motor, gears, combine chain and motorcycle transmission with a 3 phase gear motor and frequency drive. I already have the motor and drive so there is little cost to make this change but a great reduction in complexity. I probably will not have this finished before we start making applesauce in the next couple weeks (this exhaust box is not used in applesauce production). I expect once the applesauce deliveries are done in April to get this buttoned up and ready for the summer canning season. Stay tuned to see the finished exhaust box later. . . try to contain your excitement!

Update: August 5th, 2022

How do the days fly by so quickly?

It really feels like just a few weeks ago I was cutting the end off the exhaust box (see March 15th and January 13th emails.) Now it is repaired perfectly and we are using it to can cherries, apricots and peaches. I will say that putting the exhaust box back together and making it work correctly has been a bigger task than I realized it would be. In my imagination it was a case of a few cuts, a little welding, some machining and boom it would be up and running. Well, the gulf between theory and reality is just as wide as normal. I am very grateful to get everything working because it was going to be difficult to explain it I didn't. 

Coming up with a new drive system and mechanism for moving cans through the exhaust box takes creativity. I am at my most creative when I am under pressure, if the deadline passed a couple days ago then I start to get it done. One example of this was the drive for a chain (6 inch wide plastic conveyor chain) that carries the cans along the outside of the exhaust box to the seamer, the machine that puts the lids on. I have thought about how to drive this chain for several months but hadn't solved the problem.  

"Chain, Chain, Chain . . . Chain of Fools" - Aretha Franklin

I wanted this chain to travel faster so I needed a larger sprocket, at least 12 inches across. To have two such sprockets made would cost at least $1,000 and that feels like a lot of money. I found a couple of 15 inch aluminum sheaves that I could use to make the drive sprocket with. I turned them down on the lathe so they would work but had a problem: the plastic chain was too slick for the smooth aluminum sheaves to pull. It was too late to order a sprocket at this point ($1,000 was starting to look cheap) so I was really feeling the pressure to make this work. I tried large rubber bands to give the sheaves some traction against the chain but the chain still slid and didn't pull. When my latest idea failed late one evening I was feeling desperate. I needed to get this working as ripe fruit does not wait! 

I suddenly had the idea of machining sprocket teeth and inserting them into the sheaves, but I knew it would take too long. From that idea I realized I could insert nails into the sheaves and turn the smooth sheaves into toothy sprockets. I found some aluminum nails, drilled undersized holes evenly around the sprockets, pounded the nails in and then cut them off about 1/4 inch proud. When I wrapped the chain around the sprocket and fired up the motor the home-built sprockets ran perfectly. What a relief and just in time to get our canned fruit rolling down the production line.

Peaches happily traveling out of the fully repaired exhaust box

Arsonist Squirrel Tries to Burn Down Muirhead Canning!

On Wednesday August 4th around 3:20pm a squirrel tried to burn down the cannery. I was in the office by myself when the power bumped off and then back on. I didn't realize what was happening but a squirrel had shorted out the power line that runs north to south across the cannery property. When the squirrel shorted out the power sparks fell from a power pole 200 yards north of the cannery and from a pole 6 feet south of the cannery office. I was surrounded by flames and didn't realize it until our UPS driver pulled up a couple of minutes later. The driver was on the phone with 911 and yelling for my attention. He pointed out the fire on both sides of the cannery property and when I saw the flames my first thought was that it was too late. Flames behind the office and lunch room, a small building separate from the cannery, were burning against the building and spreading into taller grass and a few trees. I ran for a water hose and by stringing hoses together I was able to reach the flames behind the office. The UPS driver and I worked together to successfully put that fire out. I immediately started moving my hose down to fight the fire coming from the North heading for the cannery building. By the time I had the hose shifted over to the second fire the fire department crew had shown up. At the peak of the fire there were about 20 firefighters on the scene. The fire was burning alongside the lower warehouse and was pushing up the hill into the orchard. It looks as if it has killed a handful of cherry trees on the edge of the orchard. 

Fire damage on the north side of the cannery

Fire on the south side of the cannery office

That north fire burned 3 older shaker machines we used for parts and a pile of fir flooring from the Moscow, Idaho bean elevator that was torn down in 2007. We were definitely blessed that there was not more damage. The fire crews did a great job of stopping the fire and ensuring that it was completely out before they left. I was grateful they responded so quickly and worked so hard to contain and put out the fire. We learned a few lessons about what could be improved to lower our risk from a fire and how to better fight possible future fires.

In the end the squirrel did not succeed but he did give his life in the effort. When we called the owner of the power line to see if they would compensate us for the destroyed machinery and burned flooring we were told: "It wasn't a problem with our equipment, it was the squirrel". I don't know if the squirrel would have felt he was thrown under the bus or maybe that was just what he was going for.

More extreme heat in the 100's is coming our way this week so we are being extra diligent and on the look-out for possible situations.

We Blew Our Top Making Apple Sauce!

We started making Applesauce this week which will be the first time the cannery has run in 2021. It is always eventful when starting up for the season. For me, getting the boiler running is the biggest event because when it goes wrong it is the most exciting. One year, when starting the boiler up for the first time, we blew a 2 inch cap across the room that had not been properly installed. Not only was the room immediately enveloped in steam but 100lbs of steam blowing out a 2" hole makes a lot of noise! It takes a few seconds just to be sure you are still alive. On the bright side, if you scream when your life flashes before you the steam is so loud that nobody hears and you won't be embarrassed when the story is retold.

This year the boiler fired up without any hitches. I have gotten into the habit that when the boiler is first coming up to pressure that I wander away. I will peek at the gauge from across the cannery until it has come up to pressure. Once it has been at pressure for a few minutes then I trust that it will not explode and happily get busy canning.  

Sometimes Your GPS is Right! | Muirhead Delivery Stories From The Road

These two pictures below show the Muirhead Canning delivery truck in a farmer’s pasture near St. John, WA. I was trying to decide if the delivery truck could make it through the slough and up the bank on the other side. There was a bit of a road leading up to the water but not much sign of traffic coming out the other side. The main road I wanted was only 1/4 mile past this crossing, so all I had to do was to drive through and I’d be there. My GPS unit did not send me this way, but it did show this trail across the pasture as an actual road. I had tuned off the highway in hopes of saving 20 minutes to the last stop on my delivery route. To go back to the turnoff meant bouncing back across the pasture through the farmyard and an 30 extra minutes before I would get home. What would you do?

My thought was that there was about a 60% chance that I would make it through. When I was younger I probably would have gone for it… but when you learn a few things the hard way, you don't take as many unnecessary risks. If I got stuck how would I explain to the farmer what I was doing in the middle of the pasture and would he please pull me out? So I turned around and drove back the way I had come. My "shortcut" had added about 40 minutes to my drive that day, but getting stuck would have added several hours!  

Mountain Rose Applesauce

Pink apples?

It is fun to share what is interesting that comes down the line here at the cannery. I’ve included a few pictures about an interesting custom applesauce we ran for a local fruit stand. These green apples with the pink center are called Mountain Rose. I really just found them beautiful to look at. They have a really unique flavor as well. For this customer we mixed the Mountain Rose with other apples they provided to make an applesauce exactly to their recipe. If you are interested in trying this applesauce give us a call or email  and we will give you the contact information so you can reach them directly.

We've Been a Custom Cannery Since 1946

We are still a custom cannery and do custom canning for families and small businesses that bring in fruit to be canned. For applesauce, our minimums for custom canning are larger because we cook each batch in a large kettle and need enough apples to fill the kettle. We need close to 500lbs of apples to fill a kettle and make one batch. From this batch we get about 20 cases of 16oz jars or 12 cases of 28oz cans. Just thought you might want to know. Contact us if you have any questions.

Old-Fashioned Canning Methods Continue

Analog Can Counter

In 2006, during my first season at the cannery, one of my main memories was of the can counter (pictured right) that sits on the front of the can seamer which puts the lids on the cans. It was a great pleasure each day to watch this mechanism track our daily progress of canned fruit produced. There's something about seeing this analog number increasing and the feeling of what each count represents to our customers and my family. The highest daily total I have ever seen was 14,153 when we were producing 15oz cans. Our old fashioned process is very much like home canning so it is amazing to see what can be accomplished.

Again Happily Counting the Finished Cans

At the end of last season, the can counter stopped working- I didn't cry but I was close. This Spring I finally had time to check out what might be wrong. It was a pleasure to swing the arm, watch the mechanism rotate and numbers turn over except it didn't work every time. I found that there was a build-up of grime that kept it from working properly. I sprayed it with cleaner, then dried and oiled the mechanism. I'm so happy that this device is again smoothly counting the progression of the finished cans as they roll off the line.