Long before biotechnology became a business titan, tuna processing was a bayfront heavyweight in the local economy.
At one location in California’s Barrio Logan, a succession of companies produced canned tuna for more than 70 years. That cluster of four buildings near Cesar Chavez Park has not been in operation since 1984 and will soon join the departed tuna processing industry as a local memory.
The dilapidated buildings are part of the leasehold of Continental Maritime, a major ship repair business that plans to raze them. In their place, the company will construct a landscaped parking lot for 230 cars.
The buildings cover about 150,000 square feet. They were last used by Bumble Bee Seafoods, which canned tuna there until 1984.
The quest for cheaper labor killed tuna processing on the waterfront. Canning tuna is labor-intensive, and the costs for wages are much lower in such places as Thailand, Fiji and American Samoa where much of the tuna processing is now conducted.
Processing at the Continental site began in about 1912 by the Premier Packing Co. Among the succession of other tuna companies were Van Camp Seafood Co., from 1926 to 1959; Breast-O-Tuna Inc., from 1963 to 1965; and Westgate California Foods Inc., a cannery partly owned by San Diego financier C. Arnholt Smith, from 1968 to 1974.
Bumble Bee took over in 1980, following Sun Harbor Industries, a tuna processor from 1975 to 1979.
“You think about how many people worked in these buildings over such a long period of time,†Continental's Wilson said. “There are many memories here.â€
After taking over in 1985, Continental sold off equipment, but some relics remain.
There is an undated sign posted for employees by one company warning against drinking on the job.
A weighted pully system opens an old fire door to visitors. In case of fire, ropes holding the weights would burn, the weights would fall, and the metal door would slam shut. That would contain the fire, at least temporarily, in one section of the building.
There are long concrete troughs where the discards from the filleted tuna were flushed to another area to be made into cat food or fertilizer.
“They didn't throw anything away in those days,†said Bob Montreuil, Continental's facilities manager.
Though dusty and in disrepair, the boiler room has been used as a set for several forgettable movies and television shows. Its network of valves, pipes, gauges and boilers have been depicted as a submarine engine room and, naturally, a boiler room.
Catherine Sass, the Port's director of public art, said some of the relics will be saved for an art project in a small park at the site called Parque Del Sol. She said the Port plans to commission an artist to use some of the fixtures in a creation that honors the thousands of tuna workers who toiled there.
Former Port Commissioner Frank Urtasun is spearheading the art project. Urtasun's parents, now deceased, both worked at the cannery.
“I want to help tell the story of what occurred there,†he said. “I want it to be a powerful place to go and reminisce about what was here and the impact it had on the local economy.â€