What the sources support
The Clarke Courier of February 17, 1921 reported that the Berryville Basket Co., Inc., recently chartered by the State Corporation Commission to make all kinds of fruit containers, had begun putting up its buildings on an acre-and-a-half lot below the ice plant, alongside the Norfolk & Western Railroad: a main building 30 by 120 feet, another of 30 by 60 and a drier, with a fourth building of 30 by 120 feet to be erected later.
The same report names Harry C. Warden, a director of the Bank of Clarke County and president of the Hyde County Land and Lumber Co., as head of the company; E. G. Coiner, proprietor of Coiner's Department Store, as treasurer; and Capt. H. H. Burks, local agent of the Norfolk & Western, as secretary. With P. J. Keymel, S. S. Thomas and C. H. Phillips they were to make up the board, and Keymel, who had built the Battletown Fruit and Evaporating Company, was to manage the plant. It gives the company a maximum capital of $25,000.
The same report says the company would supply fruit growers in that section of Virginia and West Virginia, making baskets for peaches, cherries, huckleberries and raspberries and barrels for apples, and probably egg crates; that it would have a maximum capacity of 3600 baskets and wooden containers once fully completed, which its headline gives as 3600 a day; and that between 40 and 50 persons would be employed.
The same report says that, apart from the apple industry, about 60,000 baskets of berries and cherries had been shipped from along the Norfolk and Western within 40 miles of Berryville the year before, and that the basket factory would make twelve enterprises doing business alongside the Norfolk and Western tracks at Berryville.
The Clarke Courier of September 6, 1923, reporting Hugh Armel's death at the basket factory, says the big logs were unloaded from the freight cars by a huge crane whose engine Taylor Knight operated, that one of the end hooks slipped off as the crane rose, and that work was suspended for the day because many of the men were so grief stricken they felt they could do nothing more.
The Clarke Courier of May 7, 1931 reported that the Berryville basket factory had opened on the Monday of that week with about 50 people, that it was making baskets for spinach, other greens and garden truck, that it had a capacity of 600 dozen baskets a day, and that H. C. Warden was its president and R. H. Grubbs its manager.
The same report describes how the plant worked: a crane lowered the gum logs into steam vats to loosen the bark; each peeled log turned against a knife that pared it into a sheet; a conveyor carried the sheets under a drop knife that cut the side slats; saws made the hoops and top slats; the slats and bottoms were assembled by hand, and a machine shaped the basket and attached the hoop. It says the logs were shipped from Southside Virginia.
The Clarke Courier of April 12, 1934 reported that the Berryville Basket Factory had resumed operations the Monday before with 35 to 40 people after standing idle since the fall, that how long it would run was not stated though it was thought it would continue through the summer and fall, and that it had a capacity of 200 dozen baskets a day.
The Clarke Courier of September 26, 1935 reported that the Berryville Basket Company had a weekly payroll of between 60 and 70 men and women, and that it and the Berryville Silk Mill were due to operate year-round, with a possible slowdown at the basket company in the winter months.
The Clarke Courier of July 14, 1938 reported that Raymond A. Grubbs, manager of the Berryville basket factory, had announced its sale to Herbert M. Smalley of Bridgeton, New Jersey, and that the price was not disclosed.
The same report says Smalley had been in the package business for 21 years, the last eight as treasurer of the Jersey Package Company of Bridgeton, having started as a boy working in the plants, and that he said he would for the present make only baskets, without changing how the plant was set up, with Grubbs as sales manager, and would raise its capacity with new machines that were already on the way.
The same report says the company was first formed in 1921 by Harry C. Warden, H. H. Burks, P. J. Kimmell, Sam S. Thomas, E. G. Coiner and C. H. Phillips; that lately the plant had operated year after year, stopping briefly in the winters; that its baskets were known in the East and South and favored by apple growers as a package; and that its officers before the sale were C. H. Phillips, president, E. G. Coiner, treasurer, and Raymond A. Grubbs, secretary.
Also indexed as: Berryville Basket Co., Inc.; Berryville Basket Factory.
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