A Growing Industry
The Morgan Canning Company first turned a profit in 1909, and by 1918 were preparing to construct a second cannery in Cache Valley. The City of Smithfield donated six acres of land to the company to strengthen the local economy and avoid losing the industry to nearby Hyrum, UT. Five hundred acres of peas were contracted to be grown in the local area. The factory was built on Main Street, a testament to its importance to the community. A significant number of farmers from Morgan moved to Smithfield to meet the demands of the new cannery.
Tragedy, Acquisition and Changing Times
James and Joseph Anderson, the founders of the Morgan Canning Company, died respectively of pneumonia and a heart attack in 1926 and 1927. The cannery lacked strong leadership and began to decline, so the Anderson widows made the hard decision to sell. The California Packing Corporation, later known as Del Monte, purchased the company in 1928 as one of the final major canning expansions in Utah history. At this time, the Smithfield pea cannery was claimed to be the largest in the world. However, as supermarkets grew more popular in the 1930s, "mom and pop" stores that relied on local farmers began to close their doors in favor of frozen foods and scalable, centralized canning operations. By 1950, independent canning operations in Utah all-but-ceased.
Legacy
Del Monte retains ownership of the cannery in Smithfield to this day, and it is one of the last remaining facilities in Utah. However, the exact nature of the plant's operations are not publicly disclosed. The Morgan Canning Company's brand slogan "Those Good Peas" were likely a staple on thousands of Utahan dinner tables for several decades, a remnant of a time past, when the food on your plate could easily be traced back to a farm a few towns over.
Even as the nearby Logan, UT spreads its metropolitan reach as far north as Hyde Park, the town of Smithfield maintains a buffer of a handful of cow pastures between it and the city. This buffer is shrinking; for example, a dairy near my house recently ceased operations in 2024. For now, though, the endless barrage of coffee shops and strip malls haven't reached Smithfield yet. We still have relics like the Morgan Canning Company to look at, all though the building is just that: a relic, not the economic setpiece it once was. In future posts, we'll explore the cultural impact of the cannery on the local community as well as the underlying factors behind its decline. Until next time!
Citations
Gregory, Ruth West. "Those Good Peas: The Morgan Canning Company in Smithfield, UT." Utah Historical Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 2, 1968, pp. 169-77.
Strack, Don. "Utah's Canning Industry." Utah History Encyclopedia. https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/c/CANNING.shtml. Accessed 5 Jul. 2025.