PHILLIPS PACKING CO., PLANT F

Partners Levi and Albanus Phillips and W. Grason Winterbottom founded Phillips Packing Company in 1902 with a single plant and grew to national prominence in the food processing and packing industry, supplying oysters, fruit, and vegetables. Most of their extensive manufacturing facilities have been demolished, but Plant F, the remaining factory, is currently undergoing a mixed-use rehabilitation. Phillips Packing purchased the brick former furniture factory in 1930 and used it to can vegetables such as tomatoes, lima beans, and sweet and white potatoes. Government contracts to supply C and K rations to the military during World Wars I and II kept Phillips Packing busy. Admiral Richard Byrd also carried Phillips products on his Antarctic expeditions in the 1930s, largely due to his friendship with Albanus Phillips, a colorful character who modeled himself on Theodore Roosevelt.

Packing Plant F was sold to Consolidated Foods in 1957 and closed completely in the early 1960s. The next generation of the Phillips family shifted the business into seafood restaurants and crab products still available today. The redevelopment plans for “The Packing House” have been developed by the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy and Cross Street Partners (formerly historic preservation development company Struever Bros. Eccles and Rouse). They intend to highlight local food and products and eventually include a new green space dubbed Cannery Park. Another surviving piece of the once extensive Phillips complex is the former office for Plant B, a c. 1930 Colonial Revival building located nearby at 16 Washington Street.