This collection includes 7,396 Pacific Fruit Express Company structural and component ice plant and car shop drawings.
Scope and Content
This collection includes 7,396 Pacific Fruit Express Company structural and component ice plant and car shop drawings.
Drawings of ice plants, icing platforms, car repair shops and other structures, as well as component parts and standards to operating equipment are in the collection.
Locations of ice plants include: Roseville, Colton, Los Angeles, Fresno, and Bakersfield (California), Tucson (Arizona), Pocatello and Nampa (Idaho), Sparks and Las Vegas (Nevada), Laramie (Wyoming), Ogden and Salt Lake City (Utah), Council Bluffs (Iowa), North Platte (Nebraska), various locations in Oregon.
The Pacific Fruit Express drawings are primarily composed of paper negatives. There are a few drawings that use ink on linen, pencil on paper, and mylar formats.
History / Biographical
The Pacific Fruit Express Company (PFE) was incorporated in 1906 and began operations the following year. A joint project of the Edward H. Harriman-controlled Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads, the PFE handled shipments of vegetables, fruit and other perishables primarily from western growing areas to markets in the northern and eastern states. At its height, the company had a total of almost 41,000 ice refrigerator cars. To service these, the PFE operated a number of ice plants and docks, as well as car and repair shops throughout the west. After World War II, the number of cars owned by the company declined, although their size increased. Mechanical refrigerators began supplanting the older ice bunker cars. By 1972 the ice cars had been totally replaced. Joint ownership between Southern Pacific and Union Pacific ended in 1978, with the two railroads dividing the rolling stock and SP keeping the Pacific Fruit Express name.