Gems in Documents

The San Jose Library's digital collection has more documents than I thought; they've also scanned several city directories, including this
1910 San Jose directory.

A quick glance through the section on fruit packers listed all the different companies I've already seen when checking out the Market Street warehouses: J. B. Inderrieden at 200 Ryland, H.E. Loss on San Pedro, Earl Fruit on the other side of the tracks on Bassett at the northeast corner of Terraine. There's also some names I don't recognize down by what will become Del Monte Plant #3 and elsewhere on the west side of downtown.

They also list some of the packers outside town, including an Earl Fruit Co. branch in Wrights. That's unexpected to me; Wrights was a small hamlet and I wouldn't have imagined the farmers in the hills would have produced enough fruit to support a packing operation... even if I've modeled one of the warehouse buildings in Wrights that probably held them. However, Earl Fruit's presence in Wrights does connect some dots, for this photo from the Los Gatos Museum shows several narrow gauge cars on the short spur at Wrights loading fruit, with the Earl Fruit Co. placards displayed prominently on each car. Coincidentally, this photo convinced me to model that siding as well as Wrights on my layout.

And if anyone ever challenges me on whether Wrights deserves a refrigerator car or two for fruit occasionally, I'll show them the city directory.