Harris-Boyer Bakery - Fairfield Avenue

28 April 1928

Harris-Boyer Company - Johnstown

Harris-Boyer Company

Johnstown, Pennsylvania

Harris-Boyer Update

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Harris-Boyer Update

Working continues to progress.

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It's About Time!

Harris-Boyer is finally being torn down. On the far left - the crews just got done tearing down the old West End Electric.

They are doing the Fairfield Avenue side.

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You are looking at where West End Electric used to be.

Looking back towards the bakery - they say that only the Fairfield Avenue side is coming down at this point.

Heading around back along the alley.

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I will keep you - the readers - updated as the building continues to come down.

Remembering Harris-Boyer in it's glory days....

"HI YO SILVER"

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The Lone Ranger and his horse Silver brought to you by the Harris-Boyer Bakery.

Harris-Boyer Bakery

Here is a rare look at the inside of the old Harris-Boyer Bakery on Fairfield Avenue from around 1953 or so. Makes me wonder if any of this old equipment is still in the building - maybe that is what is holding that rat trap together. 

Harris-Boyer: A Brief History

Harris-Boyer Company began in 1894 as a partnership between Clement Harris and his brother O.C. Harris. The partnership was barely off the ground before it was dissolved the same year. 

The next year, E.H. Boyer began working as an apprentice for Harris at their plant on Boyer Street in Coopersdale. The building was sold in 1898 and the bakery business moved to 519 Franklin Street.
Two years later in 1900, Harris moved back to the West End and started a bakery at 220 Broad Street. He formed a partnership with W.E. Rager in 1891. This partnership was later expanded to include Boyer and the business was incorporated in 1903.

Rager retired from the business in 1904 and sold his interests to the remaining partners - Harris and Boyer. In the meantime - the bakery made its fourth move in 1902 by setting up shop at Fairfield Avenue in Morrellville.
Fire destroyed this first plant on Fairfield Avenue on September 1, 1906. Rebuilding on the same site - additions were made to the bakery in 1913, 1923 and 1927 along with the 1950's.

Back in 1894, Harris-Boyer had only two employees. By 1925 there 102 and by the 1950's, there were close to 300. They had a fleet of 88 trucks and delivered throughout Cambria, Somerset, Indiana, Bedford and Blair Counties along with parts of Westmoreland County.

There were two branch offices - one in Bedford and the other in Roaring Springs.

An average of six freight car loads of flour were used each month. At the peak of their production - one bread baking oven had the capacity of making 2,750 loaves of bread per hour. The pie-making machine was able to put out 5,000 pies an hour.

Kind of makes you hungry for one of their gobs....doesn't it!

Harris-Boyer

 

Harris-Boyer: For Better Baked Products - Look for the H-B Trade Mark of Quality. This slightly blurry ad is from 1953.