Marking the beginning of the commercial seafood processing industry on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, “Lopez, Elmer, and Company” was founded by Lazaro Lopez, F. William Elmer, W.K.M. Dukate, William Gorenflo, and James Maycock. With a capital stock of $8,000, Lopez, Elmer, and Company opened at the edge of Reynoir Street along Back Bay in Biloxi in 1881 with over one hundred workers including openers, boat crews, and wharf workers.
As a burgeoning industry, these Biloxi seafood pioneers had virtually no experience in canning operations, so W.K.M. Dukate was selected to go to Baltimore where the packing industry was well established. He observed procedures, received technical information, and purchased machinery for the processing of oysters and shrimp. The initial operation was somewhat crude, but it still showed profit and began the Mississippi Gulf Coast on its path to becoming the “Seafood Capital of the World”.
In 1884, the company dissolved and was reorganized as the Biloxi Canning Company. Many new canning operations began opening, forever changing the seafood industry on the Gulf Coast.
Comments