Paraffine Paint Company
One of the earliest industries in the history of Emeryville, the Paraffine Paint Company opened its manufacturing facility in 1884 on a 2-acre site adjacent to both San Francisco Bay and the Northern Railway tracks. This site today is the eastern section of the Emery Bay Public Market’s parking lot.
Petroleum and Gopher Poison
The Paraffine Paint Company was founded by Truman Pierce, a drug store owner, and Melvin Beardsley. an oil expert. Pierce and Beardsley spent most of the year 1883 trying to figure out what to do with the black, tarry, insoluble residue left as a byproduct after refining California petroleum (which has a particularly high asphalt content).
One day. Pierce accidentally knocked over a can of gopher poison into a barrel of the petroleum residue. which immediately began to dissolve. The two men immediately realized that the liquefied asphalt produced by combining the gopher poison (which is largely carbon disulfide) with the petroleum residue made an excellent acid-proof paint. The next step was to form a company and begin manufacture.
The Paraffine Paint Company initially produced only asphalt paint in the simple wood-frame building the company erected in Emeryville in 1884. The asphalt paint, known as P&B paint for the initials of the company’s founders. proved to be an excellent preservative and waterproofing material for both metal and wood. The company’s first major contract was waterproofing the piers along the San Francisco waterfront with P&B paint. By 1887. the Paraffine Paint Company was producing 15.000 gallons of asphalt paint from its recently-opened plant.
Although its main office was in San Francisco, the company decided to locate their factory in Emeryville for the same reasons that eventually drew many other industries to the city: cheap land; proximity to raw materials; access to both local and international markets; and excellent rail and water transportation connections. Another advantage of the Emeryville site was that the land could be expanded simply by filling in more of San Francisco Bay. During the 1890s. the firm’s original wood-frame buildings were replaced with five substantial brick structures and an oil refinery (none of these structures are extant today). As the company increased the size of its facility, it also increased its product line. which during the 1890s included a variety of waterproof roofing and building papers it had developed by soaking burlap with the asphalt paint it had invented in 1883. When burlap became too expensive, the company replaced it with felt. When felt prices got too high. it constructed its own felt manufacturing plant. Paraffine Companies. Inc. Although the 1906 earthquake destroyed Paraffine’s main office in San Francisco, the Emeryville factory was not damaged, thus permitting it to take advantage of the significant increase in demand for building materials needed to rebuild San Francisco. After 1906. the company created several divisions to produce a wide range of new products. including a full line of paints. floor covering, roofing material, and boxboard. Revenues increased substantially with this expansion. and starting in 1912 Paraffine began buying up companies that were not related to the building materials business. In 1918, the Paraffine Paint Company. which now included eight subsidiaries. combined to become the Paraffine Companies. Inc.
As a result of a capital restructuring and a new stock offering when the subsidiaries were merged, the Paraffine Companies raised new funds for even more expansion of their plant facilities. The company expanded the Emeryville operation with a new linoleum plant and a large brick warehouse in 1919. This building was almost doubled in size in 1923 with additions to the north and south elevations. It survives today as part of the Emery Bay Public Market.
During the economic boom of the 1920s, the Paraffine Companies grew to be the largest building materials manufacturing firm in the West, with 6,000 different products. According to an article in the January 1928 Oakland Outlook, Paraffine was also the second largest industrial firm in Alameda County. Its products were sold throughout the United States and were exported to South America, China, India, and Australia.
Pabco
By 1938, the Paraffine Companies had 11 manufacturing plants on 38 of the 150 acres it had assembled in Emeryville by either filling the Bay or buying adjacent parcels. During the years before World War II, the company again expanded its line of products to include fiber shipping cases, corrugated cartons, glass bottle, paper pails and cartons, and insulation materials. This expansion led to the Paraffine Companies changing the company’s name to Pabco, the brand name for most of its product line.
After the United States entered World War II, Pabco’s Emeryville factory operated 24 hours a day, employing 3,000 people in three 8-hour shifts in support of the war effort. The concrete-block warehouse that is today part of the Emery Bay Public Market was built during the war years expansion of the Pabco complex.
Pabco also prospered and grew durring the building boom that occurred after the war years. By 1956, the company had plants in 3 California cities besides Emeryville, and in another 5 cities outside California. 1956 was also the year Pabco acquired a 100% interest in the Fibreboard Corporation, a manufacturer of cardboard boxes.
Fibreboard had a number of strikes and other union problems during the 1960s that disrupted work at Pabco’s Emeryville factory, where 9 unions represented the workers. The Emeryville facility also encountered a number of problems complying with the new environmental laws.
From Plant to Public Market
In 1972, Pabco closed the Emeryville plant and moved some of its operation to Antioch. California. Pabco stopped producing building materials after the Emeryville plant closed. The company is today a division of the 104 Fibreboard Corporation (based in Concord, California) and manufactures only specialized, high-temperature insulation.
During the 1970s, the Emeryville property was subdivided for primarily non-industrial uses, and many of the over 30 Pabco buildings were demolished. By 1975, a number of retail and restaurant tenants had opened in the Pabco warehouses that now comprise the Emery Bay Public Market. The two Pabco warehouse buildings were joined by a gabled arcade as part of the extensive 1988 renovation designed by Brocchini Architects of Oakland, creating the main retail/restaurant complex of the Emery Bay Public Market.
This story originally published in 1996 for the Emeryville Centennial Celebration and compiled into the ‘Early Emeryville Remembered’ historical essays book.
