SAVERY SAVORY MUSHROOM COMPANY
17th and Federal Boulevard
When one talks about the history of mushrooms in Colorado, one name will always stand out, CHARLES
WILLIAM SAVERY. He started the Savery Savory Mushroom Company in 1924.
C. W. Savery was born on November 15, 1878, in the state of Pennsylvania, the second of six children.
His parents were Stephen and Susan Savery, also natives of Pennsylvania. Charles W. Savery attended
the West Town School as a child; later he went to a Quaker boarding school until the age of seventeen,
at which time he graduated. He then worked at various jobs, and for awhile, devoted his entire time to the lumber trade. While in the lumbering trade, he attained a good standing in the brokerage business.
On June 16, 1904, Mr. Savery went to Denver and married Miss Frances Darlington. In 1908, after paying his debts for heavy losses in Philadelphia, Mr. Savery and his wife moved to Denver with less
than six hundred dollars.
Charles Savery became interested in mushrooms back in West Chester County, Pennsylvania, through a relative, Ed Jacobs, who was in the mushroom business. At that time, West Chester County produced eighty percent of the nation's mushrooms. Mushrooms were very new to the people in the United States and had only recently been introduced to the United States in 1902.
Mushrooms are a fungus and are reproduced by spores. Mr. Savery and a friend, L. A. Hughes, got a bottle full of these spores and started growing mushrooms under the Twentieth Street Viaduct in Denver.
When Savery was kicked out of Denver, because of the stench and the insects produced by the horse manure
that was used to fertilize the mushrooms, he bought eighty acres north of Denver at 107th and Federal
Boulevard. Mr. Savery devoted twenty to twenty-five
acres of land to mushrooms, and the rest of the land was used for other small crops. Charles Savery named his new company "Savery Savory Mushroom Company." He used Savory, which means a special flavor or quality, along with his last name, for his company name.
By 1930, Mr. Savery had built thirty-two mushroom buildings and fifteen tenant houses. He employed
mostly women, of Spanish descent. There were a total of eighty-four men, women, and children living on the land. In addition to the tenant houses and mushroom buildings, there were twenty-five to thirty adobe huts built to accommodate the Mexican-American workers. A baseball field and a tennis court were also constructed at this site.
A well was dug and it has been said that the water was so good and pure that Deep Rock Water Company would come and get some of their water from this well. By 1930, Mr. Savery had invested $100,000 in his mushroom factory and had started two others. One of the other factories was run by Charles Savery's son, Robert, in Los Angles. Charles invested $70,000 in this factory. The other factory was in San Francisco and was run by his other son, Stuart, with $95,000 invested in it.
Mr. Savery had to keep his mushrooms at a temperature of fifty-six degrees to sixty degrees. So he had to heat the mushroom houses in the winter, and cool them in the summer. He would rotate his mushroom crops to that while some of the crops were ready for harvesting other mushrooms would just be starting to sprout. Savery Savory Mushroom Factory was very successful at first with an annual gain of $85,000 to $90,000. Savery's factory produced 2,500 pounds of mushrooms daily. About 500 pounds of the fresh mushrooms were sold to stores close by, including a Red and White grocery store that was on his land. The rest of the mushrooms were canned and trucked into Denver for nation-wide delivery. When Savery was asked how he became so successful he said,
"Know your stuff; if more people would study their failures and delve deeper into necessary
information regarding whatever enterprise in which they happen to be engaged, there would
be fewer business flops."
In 1935, because of reduction in crops due to diseases from insects, Charles William Savery folded up the
Savery Savory Mushroom Company.
Mr. Savery was involved in many other activities besides growing mushrooms. One of the activities
that he was involved In was the raising of hogs. He had two ranches, one of 160 acres and another of 800 acres also helped organize the 50-50 Food Growers Association and the Apex Refining Company.
Through the years, since 1935, the land on 107th and Federal has changed hands several times. Today, there are some foundations of the old Mushroom Factory left, including the water tower that was used by Charles W. Savery during the duration of the Savery Savory Mushroom Company. C. W. Savery's son, Stuart D. Savery, states that the tower is a replica of one of the cans of mushrooms used during the 1920's. The land is now rented out to be used as horse pasture.
Acknowledgments
Mr. Stuart Darlington Savery
(Sonny) W. Weingarten
References
Colorado Manufacturer and Consumer
Denver Public Library
State Historical Society of Colorado
|