American can was another big mfgr of cans.

FWIW the sheet steel used to make cans was HUGE source of profit for steel mills, far more than anything else.  As an example, there was a US Steel mill in Pittsburg CA that received sheet steel from Utah (DRGW/WP) to treat the metal for use in making cans.  AFAIK it was pretty much all the plant did.

There were canneries everywhere which meant there were also lots of can manufacturing plants ready to receive flat sheet steel..  Lots of freight traffic.

Dave Nelson

Bill l was going to post the same photo. And I have others of loose cans in cars. A lot of vegetables and meat were canned in Iowa. The large cities had can factories, but they were not always next doors to the canneries or meat plants. So the empty cans were delivered where they were needed by rail or truck. A few plants could roll their own cans, so they got flat stock.

Doug Harding

https://www.facebook.com/douglas.harding.3156/

Youtube: Douglas Harding Iowa Central Railroad

Yes, American Can and Continental Can BOTH had large can plants in Seattle, as I mentioned earlier.  American Can was on the Seattle downtown waterfront.  Continental Can was near the Duwamish River that emptied into Puget Sound in south Seattle area.  For RR content, here are some items:

1. The American Can plant in Seattle was across the street (Alaskan Way) from Pier 69.  American Can actually owned Pier 69 at the time the plant operated.  When American Can went belly-up, Pier 69 was left to rot away.  The Port of Seattle purchased it, completely redid it, and made it their new headquarters in 1992 (I briefly had an office there before I resigned from the Port).  Here is what the former American Can plant looks like today:

https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=3ad834db-c228-4e07-b0b3-d5a2a5c04d76&cp=47.614236~-122.352602&lvl=19.62&style=g&pi=0&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027

Pier 69 now has no resemblance to what it looked like in the old days but I know there are some old photos of it on the internet somewhere as I have seen some.  From the plant’s location, I must assume that NP switched American Can, probably exclusively.

2. The Continental Can plant in Seattle was on South Orchard St.  There were actually two plants there.  Plant 13 made the cans and Plant 31 adjacent to it made canning machinery.  Here is what the can plant looks like today:

https://www.bing.com/maps?osid=1fa021fb-c715-4a1c-8256-21c2dce057a3&cp=47.538351~-122.324897&lvl=20.306181&dir=180&style=g&pi=0&v=2&sV=2&form=S00027

The water tower on the roof used to have a big red concentric set of “CCC” on it for Continental Can Company.  The water tower was left on the roof as a landmark but has not had any water in it since the 1965 Seattle earthquake.  That earthquake caused the water tower on top of the Fisher’s flour mill to fall over and it caused the one fatality of that earthquake and was someone that our family knew.  So water towers were drained after that so they wouldn’t slosh and fall over in earthquakes.  Continental Can in Seattle was switched by UP.  Some of the spur tracks are still visible.  The junk yard next to the can plant to the west used to be Plant 31, the machine shop, and CCC owned all that property along the river and along the street where the junk yard is now (Seattle Iron & Metal).

3. Regarding steel that was mentioned by Dave Nelson, it was shipped in box cars cut to size and stacked in bunches.  My best recollection from 50 years ago, the last I saw it, it was somewhere around 3 ft x 5 ft sheets??  My dad said it was loaded in boxcars to about 3 ft in height so as not to exceed the car’s weight limit.   It was called “tin plate” because it was coated with a thin layer of tin (thus “tin cans”) but was steel underneath the very thin tin coating.  I remember the scrap bin at the end punch machine with these big sheets of tin all full of holes where the can ends were punched out.  It was like very sharp and dangerous steel “lace.”  The scrap was sent out in gondolas to be re-milled.
4. A lot of the cans were shipped out in bulk, like in the picture Bill Parks provided.  Yes, later it went out in cardboard boxes.
5. Speaking of your canning days Jim, probably later than when you were canning fish, Continental Can invented what they called the “collapsible can” which was sent out “flat” and squished back into a round shape at the fish cannery.  BTW, Continental Can, and I would guess American Can also, made the canning machines that the fish canneries, meat canneries, and vegetable canneries used to do the canning with.
6. Here is an item of possible nostalgia for some of you.  I scarfed the attached map of Continental Can plants when they shut down Plant 13 in the 1970’s.  I don’t know what year the map was made though.

I see the Bond Crown Division bottle cap plant on the map in Wilmington that Jay Styron mentioned.  Also, look at the blue patches in VA, NC, SC, GA, and LA states.  That land was owned (or leased) by Continental Can for their paper products divisions.  That would make some good loads in and out for those who model the south, similar to what us Pacific Northwest modelers do with Weyerhaeuser and Scott Paper loads.  Pulp wood and chemicals in, paper and cardboard out.

Doug Paasch

Also waxing nostalgic about the good old days in Seattle

Yes Dennis,

It is true that some can plants made certain cans, and other plants made other types of cans.  The plants made what types of cans were needed in large volumes for the industries in their areas.  And I mean LARGE volumes, as in millions of cans, as the machinery is big, heavy, expensive, and specific to a type/size of can.  And boy did that can plant pound and vibrate from the machinery.  The physical building was quite a substantial investment, as well as the machinery.  So, small volume customers would indeed have to order from can plants far away if they weren’t near a high-volume customer for the same type of can.

That’s why the Seattle plant made lots of fish cans, because of the Alaska and Washington fish canneries.  BTW, the Alaska commercial fishing fleet was, and still is, based in Seattle at the Port of Seattle’s Fisherman’s Terminal at the north end of Interbay (as in BNSF’s, nee BN’s, nee GN’s Interbay), and at Pier 91 (former Navy Pier) at the south end of Interbay.  Back in GN days, there was a Western Fruit Express (as in GN’s subsidiary in the WFE/BRE/FGE consortium) icing platform at Interbay (steam era content) along GN’s main out of the north end of the yard.  The fishing industry today still uses a LOT of ice.  Back in the steam era days, the reefers for shipping fish used a lot of ice, too, and Seattle was where a lot of fish were brought in from Alaska and local waters.

Doug Paasch