Elbridge Amos Stuart (1856-1944) was a Quaker grocer from Indiana. Stuart learned of evaporated milk when he purchased one hundred cases of Highland Brand Condensed Milk from a Helvetia salesman.
He invested his savings to create new process, an unsweetened, sterilized, evaporated milk in cans, which then he sold in enormous quantities to gold seekers on their way to Klondike.
Stuart founded the Pacific Coast Condensed Milk Company in 1899 in Kent, Washington. The company was later renamed and moved to Carnation, Washington, a city that was named for the company’s dairy farms there. The Pacific Coast Condensed Milk Company acquired the Carnation plant and machinery and on September 6 1899, produced the first case of evaporated milk.
The company would later change its name and become the world famous Carnation Milk Company.
In 1929 the Carnation Company acquired Albers Milling Company and added some of its research projects to those concerning cows. The result was a complex with kernels and catteries where pet food was tested.
In 1985, Nestle, the largest foods company in the world, acquired the Carnation Company.
Brand of Carnation
