A little razor clam history this week along with our boat photos! The razor clam was first described in 1788 from specimens found near Coal Harbor, Alaska, which was adjacent to the present Kenai Peninsula community of Homer.
The beginning of the pacific razor clam industry echoes a capitalistic fable worthy of Horatio Algier. Peter F. Halferty, known today as the ‘father of the clam industry on the Pacific Coast,’ founded the industry in Warrenton, Oregon in 1894. Desperate to feed seven children, the impoverished Halferty cooked his first pack of clams on a kitchen stove and took the clams sealed in one-pint jars to nearby Astoria where he sold the entire pack. For nearly two years Halferty worked to perfect the cooking and canning process and he eventually built the first razor clam cannery on the West Coast.
By the turn of the century, Halferty had transformed a domestic canning process into a successful, regional adventure and he quickly rose from pauper to prosperous businessman. Peter Halferty taught his children the tools of the trade and eventually turned over his clamming company, Pioneer Packing Company, to his son, Guy P. Halferty.
In 1914, Guy Halferty moved Pioneer Packing to Grays Harbor to cash in on the area’s unexploited clam beaches. Before long, he had canneries in Aberdeen, Westport, Grayland and Copalis. By 1916 his canneries numbered nearly 50 and the market was demanding more clams. That same year he sent one of his cannery foremen, Frank E. McConaghy to Alaska with instructions to build a major clam cannery there. McConaghy’s destination – Cordova, a place locals called “the razor clam capitol of the world.”
When McConaghy arrived in Cordova he discovered that a rival company from Warrenton was renovating a waterfront warehouse into a clam cannery. The Lighthouse Canning and Packing Company was the first razor clam cannery to prepare an Alaskan Pack, but once McConaghy completed construction of a two-line cannery, Pioneer Packing Company overtook Lighthouse in the race to market razor clams.
Almost from the beginning, Pioneer Packing became the company associated with Cordova clamming and it made the Halferty name synonymous with Alaska razor clams. The facility became the largest razor clam cannery in the world, and it established Frank McConaghy as the youngest and one of the most respected superintendents in Alaska.
