By Emily Dale
June 2, 2025
This blog is based on Emily’s 2025 Society for Historical Archaeology Conference presentation, “Trading Pines for Wines: Consumer Ties between the 20th Century Arizona Timber and California Fruit-Packing Industries.”
For more about Apex or the Apex, Arizona Archaeology Project, visit our website or email Dr. Emily Dale at emily.dale@nau.edu.
Despite the isolated nature of Apex and the economic impacts of the Great Depression, the residents at the lumber camp had access to a wide range of goods from around the world. Ceramics from Ohio, Japan, and Belgium, a glass teacup from Clarksburg, West Virginia, cigars from Pennsylvania, Mum’s Deodorant from Philadelphia and New York, and fire bricks from California, Denver, Colorado, and Gallup, New Mexico are among the numerous items manufactured and shipped from outside of Arizona.
As we examined the origins of our artifacts, though, an interesting trend emerged. Several of our items originated in the Los Angeles, California area. Glass containers and ceramics from Los Angeles proper, Vernon, Huntington Park, and Long Beach point to a generalized and sustained connection between Apex and Southern California.
Food and Drink
A variety of sodas, foodstuffs, and dishes all came from Southern California, suggesting a wide range of items were procured from Los Angeles. A bottle neck embossed with a globe and the word “GLO[BE]” came from the Globe Bottling Company of Los Angeles, which produced soda and other beverage bottles.
Coca-Cola, Mission Dry Sparkling Orange Sparkling, and Orange Crush bottles were manufactured by Vernon-based Southern Glass Company under both their parallelogram (1923-1926) and star (1926-1930) maker’s marks. Interestingly, all of these sodas were common across Apex, but came from a variety of glass producers and bottlers throughout the United States indicating California wasn’t their only, or main, source for getting them.
One Southern Glass Company Coca-Cola bottle, for example, was also marked “Prescott, Ariz.” on the base, revealing that, while the bottle was manufactured in Los Angeles, it was filled at one of Prescott’s Coca-Cola bottlers.
Two jars from Haas, Baruch, & Company, a 1870s-1953 Los Angeles-based Grocery chain Prescott were from their private “Iris” label. Under this brand, Haas, Baruch, and Company sold a wide variety of items, including tomatoes, spices, prunes, mustard, salmon, and, in our case, coffee.
Glen Rosa Products, Inc. was a Los Angeles area canning company that, per a 1936 Department of Agriculture document, manufactured jam, jelly, preserves, and fruit juices.
Two undecorated bowls originated in Los Angeles-areas potteries. A white improved earthenware bowl was made by Vernon Kilns (1931-1958) of Vernon. A porcelain bowl came from Wallace China (1930s-1954) of Huntington Park. Wallace largely made wares for hotels and restaurants.
Alcohol
The post-Prohibition requirement for bottles to have special factory codes for liquor helps identify alcohol bottles and their location of manufacture, even if the specific contents are unknown. We have previously discussed Los Angeles’ Latchford Glass Company unidentified Rectifier-19 whiskey bottles produced under their Plant 84 Liquor Permit Code. Two Owens-Illinois bottles from the Vernon, California plant bear their Liquor Permit Code of 88. The Distiller (D-525) of these 1934 bottles is currently unknown.
Three bottles containing Vai Brothers Wine were made by the Maywood Glass Company. Both were based out of Los Angeles. Vai Brothers was founded in 1907 by two brothers from Turin, Italy. They survived Prohibition by transitioning to medicinal alcohol, producing the California Padres Wine Elixir Tonic. They transitioned back to regular wine in 1933, when our bottles likely date to, as they are labelled “VAI BROS / WINES”. No other wine bottles have been identified at Apex, and additional Maywood bottles held other, non-alcoholic contents.
Sustained Ties
The variety of Los Angeles area companies represented in the Apex assemblage reveals that the ties between these two areas spanned Apex’s existence, with maker’s marks from across the 1920s and 1930s.
|
Glass Company |
Location |
Dates |
| Glass Containers, Inc | Vernon | 1934-1968 |
| Illinois Pacific Co.
–Illinois-Pacific Glass Company |
Los Angeles |
–1902-1926 –1926-1930 –1930-1932 |
| Latchford Glass Company | Los Angeles | 1929-1935 |
| Long Beach Glass Company | Long Beach | 1920-1933 |
| Maywood Glass Company | Los Angeles | 1930-1940 |
| McLaughlin Glass Company | Los Angeles | 1920-1935 |
| Owens-Illinois Company
–Plant Code 23 |
Los Angeles |
–1932-present |
| Southern Glass Company | Vernon | 1919-1930 |
For example, the Illinois-Pacific Company of Los Angeles changed its name and maker’s mark several times across its existence. As we have bottles from across their different names and maker’s marks, Apex was connected to the bottler between the late 1920s and into the early 1930s.
Why California?
Los Angeles was one terminus of the western end of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, which ran through Williams. This meant that Apex was directly connected to the Southern California City. More importantly, though, like many of the lumber companies of Northern Arizona, much of the timber cut by Apex’s lumberjacks was likely converted into crates and shipped to California for their growing citrus industry. Apex, then, was not just geographically connected to Los Angeles, but likely economically as well.
Perhaps Saginaw and Manistee rail cars carrying crates to Los Angeles were filled with Californian goods for the company store on the return trip rather than come back empty. Such connections point to the numerous ways Apex and its residents were able to obtain a wide variety of items, even while living in a rural area.
Mystery Mark
Two colorless, rounds bases contain enigmatic writing. Embossed on the outside, but legible from the inside, the vessels read “No. 73T / 12” and “No. 72T / 13”. Let us know if you recognized the mark or the function of these two artifacts!
Sources
Carey, C.J. 1936 Official List of Commission Merchants, Dealers, Brokers, Processors and Agents Licensed Under the Agricultural Code of the State of California as of May 1, 1936. State of California Department of Agriculture Special Publication No. 140. Sacramento, California.
Lehner, Lois 1988 Lehner’s Encyclopedia of U.S. Marks on Pottery, Porcelain & Clay. Collector Books, Paducah, KY.
Lindsey, Bill 2025 Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website. Society for Historical Archaeology. sha.org/bottle.
Spitzzeri, Paul R. 2019 Ticket to the Twenties Themes & Tangents: Wine Tonics, Elixirs and Bitters in the Prohibition Era. The Homestead Museum 2 October 2019. https://homesteadmuseum.blog/2019/10/02/ticket-to-the-twenties-themes-tangents-wine-tonics-elixirs-and-bitters-in-the-prohibition-era/
Stueven, Michele 2024 One of L.A.’s First Grocery Stores, Smart & Final Celebrates 150 Years. LA Weekly 30 July 2024. https://www.laweekly.com/one-of-l-a-s-first-grocery-stores-smart-final-celebrates-150-years/