W. D. Huffman Pickle Company

W. D. Huffman Pickle Company was a business that operated in Indianapolis for roughly 30 years. The proprietor, William D. Huffman, began working in the food products business in the late 1880s before opening his own establishment in the late 1890s. Though the company was known for its pickles, Huffman frequently sought out new products to process and bring to the marketplace. During the firm’s lifetime, it processed pickles, catsup, vinegar, jellies, ciders, and canned or preserved vegetables.

At its start, the company was in the cider business. This endeavor was on the southside of the city, near other breweries and chemical processing companies. By 1896, Huffman’s business had shifted its focus to the production, bottling, and distribution of vinegar. Huffman also appears to have been involved with a similar company, the Indianapolis Canning Company, in the early 1900s. In 1902, company records listed him as the president. By 1905, Huffman had moved the pickle company to the St. Clair Street site, fronting the canal on the west with several tracks of the Big Four railroad (see Railroads) running along the eastern side of the factory, and located across the street from the Indianapolis Canning Company. Huffman’s wife, Laura Huffman, also worked at the W. D. Huffman Company and was for a time a secretary at the canning company.

In the early 1900s, food-industry companies were known to make false or misleading claims on product labels. State and local authorities cited the Huffman Pickle Company for shorting shipments and for impure products on several occasions. In 1909, the State Board of Health (see Public Health) issued a warrant for Huffman’s arrest for misbranding the company’s food products. Specifically, the company had purported that one of its syrups contained 50 percent cane sugar and 50 percent maple sugar. The State Board of Health’s chemical analysis found only a trace of maple sugar and revealed this information in its September 1909 bulletin. Though Huffman was arrested for the incident, his attorney posted an appeal bond to keep Huffman from being sent to the county workhouse.

Following Huffman’s arrest, the W. D. Huffman Company entered a period of adversity that continued through 1910. US Marshals raided the company on charges of impure vinegar multiple times. In these cases, it appears the confiscated vinegar had been shipped to Huffman from a company in Chicago. The company also faced continuing inspections by the State Board of Health. Though its October 1910 bulletin noted that Huffman’s catsup, distilled vinegar, and cider vinegar were deemed “legal,” this determination did not deter US Marshals from staging a raid, the next month, to confiscate products that Huffman had ordered to replace previously confiscated products.

The company’s problems continued in the fall of 1913. Isidor Wulfson, Indianapolis’s inspector of weights and measures, initiated an investigation of Huffman’s company for allegedly shortchanging City Market vendor Earl Cramer by 670 pickles on his order for 2,500 pickles. A manual count by Wulfson verified the allegation. Indianapolis police arrested Huffman but Wulfson failed to garner a conviction for the shortage of pickles.

Huffman’s brush with the law did not substantially affect the company’s operations. In November 1913, W. D. Huffman Pickle Company reportedly employed 60 workers in the packing of “pickles, catsup, apple butter, jams, jellies and other like products.”

The company continued to operate through World War I and into the 1920s. Huffman ran ads describing its products as “Huffman’s Sweet Pickles have that ‘Want More’ Taste.” Indianapolis grocery stores like the 11-store Piggly Wiggly chain used the familiar catchline in newspaper advertisements for “Huffman’s Sweet Pickles,” selling for 18 cents.

Huffman died on August 14, 1926, at the age of 72. Following his death, Laura Huffman operated the company and incorporated it on June 11, 1929. The announcement of the incorporation reported that the company planned an “extensive program of expansion and development of its business.” An apparent reincorporation was completed in 1932. Subsequent references to W. D. Huffman Pickle Company fade from local news sources.

Laura Huffman died on October 10, 1942, at the age of 79. She is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery (see Cemeteries) in Indianapolis; her husband is buried in his birth town in Columbus, Ohio.