The Tomato Cannery

  The Tomato Cannery building was built in the 1920s.  It had 12 tapered columns made of field stone, supporting an upper level and roof.  This upper level was used for storage canning supplies.  The ground level was open with no walls between the columns to allow heat from the cooking vats to escape. 

  Walls have now been built between the columns and the current owners use the enclosed building for a carpentry shop.

The following is an article from the Webster County Historical Society:

Growing and Canning Tomatoes

  From 1900 until the early 1940s the canning of tomatoes was the most profitable crop for many on the Webster County farm.  Growing and canning tomatoes involved many months of hard labor for the farm families.  Many farmers believed that tomatoes would grow and produce better in rocky hillside soil or “new ground” which had been cleared of trees and sprouts and then planted in tomatoes.  Tomato seeds were sown in the early spring, and then the tomato plants were transplanted into rows in the new ground fields.  When the green tomatoes became ripe, they were picked and placed in wooden crates by family members or neighbors.  The filled crates would be loaded on a wagon, pulled by a team of horses or mules, and hauled to the farm or local canning factory.  The canning process began with hauling water in large wooden barrels on a wagon from the closest water supply.  The water would be used to scald the tomatoes to help remove the peelings and to be used for cooking the canned tomatoes.  The canning factory had a long trough where the peelers were paid so much per bucket of peeled tomatoes.  Following the peeling, the tomatoes were placed in tin cans and a lid was crimped on.  The sealed cans were next placed in a metal crate and lowered into a vat of boiling hot water, where they remained until the time required for cooking.  A few days later the canned and cooked tomatoes were placed in cardboard boxes and loaded on the farm wagon (later farm truck) and hauled to the nearest shipping point in the county.  Webster County became known as “The Tomato Capitol of the World.”  In 1917 more tomatoes were canned and shipped here than any other place in the world.  By the early 1940s government regulations became too expensive for most canning factories in the county, and what had been a prosperous industry soon ceased to exist.