Milestones Icon: Kuner-Empson Cannery

Packing plant The Cannery Apartments at 15 Third St. in Longmont were once the site of the Kuner-Empson Cannery.

The food-canning factory operated for 90 years and was constructed by John Howard Empson in 1887. He began the Empson Packing Co. to can vegetables produced on Longmont farms.

Empson moved to Colorado from Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1880 with his daughter Lida. He opened a candy store in Denver in 1883, but health problems forced him to close the store. To restore his health, he moved to Estes Park and spent time with Enos Mills, the naturalist and homesteader, who helped create Rocky Mountain National Park.

When Empson’s health was restored, he moved to Longmont with plans to open the cannery. The first cannery was destroyed by fire in 1891 but was rebuilt and expanded to include a 60,000-square-foot warehouse. Empson also built canneries in Greeley, Loveland and Fort Lupton.

In 1920, Empson sold the cannery to Longmont investors. It was reportedly the largest business deal ever made in Northern Colorado at the time, transferring controlling interest in a business having a value of approximately $1 million.

In 1927, Empson Packing Co. merged with Kuner Pickle Co. of Brighton, Colorado and became Kuner-Empson Co. Karl Kuner Mayer, a Colorado pioneer, became president after the merger.

According to a report filed at Kuner-Empson Co. in 1963 on problems facing the canning industry, Kuner-Empson had a trade area covering 12 states with annual sales approaching $7 million. It contracted 4,848 acres of vegetable land and employed 2,500 workers in peak season.

The company contracted crop land for asparagus, beans, red beets, cabbage, carrots, corn, peas, pickles, pumpkins and tomatoes.  In 1961, the company sold 2,018,971 cases of canned vegetables valued at $6,721,884. The largest crops were peas, corn, tomatoes and snap beans.

Local farmers depended on Kuner-Empson to protect them from seasonal price fluctuations. Under contract, each grower was provided with seeds, plants, fertilizers, insecticides, sprays, labor for harvesting, equipment and technical advice.

Difficulties arose between the canners and growers in the 1960s as the Denver metro area grew and urban land use encroached on agricultural land. Kuner-Empson began having trouble securing acreage for certain crops such as tomatoes and cucumbers. The problem was complicated by opposition from domestic labor unions of Mexican farm laborers.

In 1970, the company closed because of obsolete equipment and an open sewer system, which violated pollution standards.

By 2007, the warehouse and adjoining buildings had been redeveloped as a 94-unit apartment complex that was purchased by Boulder-based Thistle Community Housing as an affordable housing unit. Hallways in the complex still house canning artifacts such as a bronze pea-crushing caldron and a de-viner used to separate peas from vines.

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