Historical Note

J.M. Bemis & Co. was founded in 1858 when Judson Moss Bemis opened a factory in St. Louis, Missouri to produce the first commercially machine-sewn, color-printed textile bags in the United States, bags that had previously been hand sewn and hand stenciled. The business grew steadily, and by 1881 J.M. Bemis & Co. had additional offices in Boston and Minneapolis. After Bemis' brother Stephen took charge of the St. Louis plant in 1885, the official name of the company changed to the Bemis Brothers Bag Company. That same year, the company was incorporated and introduced its cat-in-the-bag logo.

By 1900, Bemis Bro. Bag Company operated eight textile bag factories across the country, making burlap and cotton bags for grain, flour, feed and other products. By the early 20th century, the company also ran two cotton mills and became the worldæs largest importer of burlap from India. In 1913, Bemis built its first paper mill in Peoria, Illinois, beginning its expansion from cotton and burlap packaging into the manufacture of paper products.

Judson Moss Bemis died in 1921, to be succeeded first by his son, Albert Farwell Bemis, then his nephew J.S. Bemis, and later his grandson F.G. Bemis. The company continued to expand, with some factories producing other canvas goods such as tents and tarpaulins. In the 1930s, the company began to design and manufacture machinery to fill and close bags, and in the 1940s, it expanded into plastics, using polyethylene for bags and packaging materials, and as an additive to strengthen its textile products.

In the late 1950s, Bemis entered a phase of growth characterized by heavy acquisition of companies that used related technologies. During this period, in 1964, the Bemis Bro. Bag Co. became the Bemis Company, Inc. and abandoned its cat-in-the-bag logo for the "b" shaped bar and oval still in use today. The acquisitions period ended in the 1970s, to be followed by phase of internal restructuring and growth focusing on increasing profits.

In the 1980s, Bemis sold the rest of its textile mills and expanded manufacturing to produce plastic film for packaging foods, polyethylene packaging and pressure sensitive materials. The company continued to develop new plastic film products and modernize its plants through the 1990s. Today Bemis continues to be a major producer of flexible packaging and pressure sensitive materials.

The Seattle plant was one of Bemis' many facilities across the country. Built in an industrial area just south of the downtown business district, the Seattle plant became the ninth branch of the Bemis Bro. Bag Company. Traveling to Seattle from the Omaha plant with a rail car full of bags to be broken down for delivery, Robert MacAusland set up a small sales office in Seattle in 1904. With the permission of company president Albert Farwell Bemis, MacAusland and J.M. Bemis' son-in-law Reginald Parsons joined forces to build a Bemis plant in Seattle. The new building was constructed on Colorado Avenue near Atlantic Street in 1904 and bag production began the following year. A 1917 addition to the original building, designed and constructed by Thomas M. Scruggs, more than doubled the floor space of the plant. The original building was badly damaged in the 1949 earthquake and a third building was subsequently constructed.

The Seattle plant began with production of textile bags and expanded into manufacture of paper bags in 1941, with textile production phased out completely in 1978. The Seattle plant closed in 1993 and its production was transferred to the Vancouver, Washington plant. The four-story brick building was subsequently bought by a group of artists who reopened it in 1996. The Bemis Building currently operates as a space for artists to live and work and includes a gallery for fine art exhibitions.