First Pacific Coast Salmon Cannery

Nothing of the cannery survives, and it did not stay long. The Hume brothers and Andrew Hapgood, a Maine tinsmith, canned Sacramento River salmon on a barge moored off the town of Washington in 1864, and within two years the runs had fallen too far to keep them. The 2009 bronze sends them to the Columbia in Oregon; they set up at Eagle Cliff, on the Washington Territory side. The industry kept that pattern for decades: exploit a river's salmon, then move to the next. The site's National Historic Landmark designation was withdrawn in 2004.

What the plaque says

First Pacific Coast Salmon Cannery Founded in the town of Washington (Broderick), Yolo County by Hapgood, Hume, and Company in 1864, California s first salmon cannery was located on a barge moored here on the banks of the Sacramento River. This small canning operation was the beginning of the salmon canning industry on the West Coast. Salmon caught in the Sacramento River were canned by the cooker-boiler method, rather than the salt preservation method commonly used at that time. The new process allowed for wider markets and lower prices. In 1866, declining salmon runs in the Sacramento River caused Hapgood, Hume and Company to move their canning operation to the Columbia River in Oregon. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 1040 Plaque placed by California State Parks, River Cats Foundation, West Sacramento Historical Society, City of West Sacramento, and the West Sacramento Chamber of Commerce April 1, 2009

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sacramento — steps away
  The Gold Rush river port that became the state capital, and jacked itself ten feet into the air to stop drowning.

More markers nearby

• Site of Stage and Railroad (First) — steps away
• What Cheer House — steps away
• Site of Home of Newton Booth — steps away
• Eagle Theater — steps away