About
Past, Present, and Future
The Past
In 1912, the Gallatin Valley was known as the “pea capital of the nation,” producing 75% of the nation’s crop. The Bozeman Canning Company was founded in 1917 and opened in the summer of 1918, canning peas, beans, and carrots. Between 3,000 and 3,500 acres were contracted by three to four growers to feed the cannery. On average, 13,000 cases of peas per day were produced.
View GalleryThey were marketed as “peas that please” and distributed across the nation with brand names such as “Gallatin Valley” and “Bridger Canyon.” The cannery was open 15-20 hours a day during peak harvest, employing 250-275 people. Because of the selective service draft during World War II, high school students and housewives were the backbone of the cannery workforce along with retirees, migrant workers, the not yet drafted, and hoboes. Two wage scales existed – $0.40/hour for unskilled jobs and $0.55/hour for jobs requiring skill or heavy lifting.
Today
The goal of the entire development was always to celebrate the originality of the existing buildings and revitalize them into functional, modern day versions of what they used to be. You can always build a new building, but to weave the old with the new and incorporate the rich history is what makes the Cannery District so special.
View GalleryOur Team
The saying that you can take the boy off the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the boy comes to mind when looking back on the history of the Cannery District project. I grew up on a wheat farm in Southwest Kansas and was immediately attracted to the agrarian history of the mill and pea cannery sites.
I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, but Montana has been where my heart is since I was teenager when our family bought a cattle ranch outside of Livingston. Every year during high school and college my summers were consumed working the ranch and exploring the outdoors. It was during that period of my life that I developed a strong connection to the land and love of Montana.
Growing up on the east coast, I knew little of the West; but always spent summers exploring the woods and beaches of the sleepy island where we had a summer house and at girl scout camps. When I met my future husband, an avid skier, and boater, his destination was to get back to Montana, where he had earned a degree at the University of Montana.