Burbank, California - The City of Burbank - Early Manufacturing

Early Manufacturing

In 1887, the Burbank Furniture Manufacturing Company was the town's first factory. After the land boom downturn in 1888, the building was abandoned and transients slept in the empty factory. In 1917, the arrival of the Moreland Motor Truck Company changed the town and resulted in a manufacturing and industrial workforce begin to take root in the city. Within a few years Moreland trucks were seen bearing the label, "Made in Burbank." Watt Moreland, its owner, had relocated his plant to Burbank from Los Angeles. He selected 25 acres (100,000 m2) at San Fernando Road and Alameda Avenue. Moreland invested $1 million in the factory and machinery, and employed 500 people.

Within the next several decades, factories, both large and small, would dot the area landscape. What had mainly been an agricultural and ranching area would get replaced with a variety of manufacturing industries. Moreland operated from 1917 to 1937. Aerospace supplier Menasco Manufacturing Company would later purchase the property. Menasco's Burbank landing gear factory closed in 1994 due to slow commercial and military orders, affecting 310 people. Within months of Moreland's arrival, Community Manufacturing Company, a $3 million tractor company, arrived in Burbank.

In 1920, the Andrew Jergens Company factory opened at Verdugo Avenue near the railroad tracks in Burbank. Andrew Jergens, Jr. — aided by his father, Cincinnati businessman Andrew Jergens, Sr. and business partners Frank Adams and Morris Spazier — had purchased the site and built a single-story building. They began with a single product, coconut oil soap, but would later make face creams, lotions, liquid soaps and deodorants. In 1931, despite the Depression, the Jergens company expanded, building new offices and shipping department facilities. In 1939, the Burbank corporation merged with the Cincinnati company of Andrew Jergens, Sr., becoming known as the Andrew Jergens Company of Ohio. The Burbank plant closed in 1992, affecting nearly 90 employees.