A Plant Grows in Hicksville
Obviously, Brooklyn and New York City (they had yet to join together in one municipality) constituted a major sales market. At the time, Heinz already had a limited pickle-salting operation near Port Jefferson, but putting an actual factory on Long Island , closer to the City, would offer advantages. Shipping supplies and finished products would be convenient. Perhaps more important, increasing the company's total Long Island capacity would mean having local farmers commit more of their crops to Heinz. This would leave L.I. farmers with less produce to sell to competitors of the company, which would help Heinz solidify its market share.
Would a town on western Long Island welcome a new Heinz factory? Unquestionably. H. J. Heinz Co. was a legendary success - a "clean" thriving business with happy employees. It had earned a reputation for paying employees a fair, but not high, wage. Important to its ethic was offering its employees (many of them women) clean, safe, and humane "Christian" working conditions. Compared to working in other factories, a job at Heinz was practically a blessing.
Uniformed workers sorting and counting pickles at a Heinz factory c.1910
H. J. Heinz Company, Producers, Manufacturers and Distributers [sic], Pure Food Products"
Internet Archive
For the town itself, getting a Heinz factory meant construction jobs, new prosperity for farmers, and higher employment levels. It also "said something" about the place; after all, the world-famous Mr. Heinz could easily have put his factory in some other town instead. Thus, when the Heinz Company talked, small towns listened eagerly. Who first spoke to whom about the matter is not evident, but this news item was published late in 1892:
Newtown Register, November 10, 1892
And so, as 1893 began, "the people of Hicksville" resolved to give land to the company - a standard commitment made by any community that wanted a Heinz presence. It was a tract of seven acres, adjacent to the tracks of the LIRR branch to Port Jefferson, between Park Avenue and Bethpage Road.
E. Belcher Hyde 1914 Atlas of Nassau County (highlight added)
Newtown Register, January 5, 1893
Within a week, the company accepted the offer. Soon, the following advertisement was placed in local newspapers:
Huntington Long-Islander, January 28, 1893
It was late January, and Long Island was thoroughly frozen. No farmer's plow or builder's shovel would penetrate Hicksville's cold soil for months - and farmers were pledging the year's unplanted crops to Heinz.
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