These cabbage wagons were a familiar sight to
Onalaska residents. They were parked behind the
building and were a temptation to the young folks,
especially at Halloween. A favorite trick was to
disassemble a wagon, take all the parts to another
location, piece by piece, and then re-assemble it.
On one occasion a wagon was found on the roof of
the North Western Depot the morning after
Halloween.
  Inside the factory, the cabbage was sent first to
the coring room. Here the workers sat on high
stools in front of a machine. They would take a
head of cabbage off the conveyor belt as it passed
by and position it, bottom up, under a machine
that had a drill-like apparatus that came down
when a lever was pushed with the person's knee.
The machine would drill out the hard core from
the center of each head, similar to the operation of
a drill-press. These workers would also remove the
outside, wilted leaves and then drop the heads
down a chute where they were shredded. The
shredded cabbage was then sent out to the kraut
tanks. These tanks were originally used for soaking
the pickles in brine. There were forty of these
tanks constructed entirely of wood. Each tank mea-
sured 8 feet deep and 12 feet in diameter, and held
from 27 to 32 tons of cabbage. Each tank was filled
twice a year.
  Men wearing rubber hip boots got inside the
tanks and spread the cabbage around evenly with
pitchforks, and then salted it down. When these
men left the tanks for a break, lunch, or to get sup-
plies, they left their boots on; as they returned they
simply rinsed off the boots with a hose to clean
them. Flies were a common problem in this open
area. One of the men that usually worked in the
kraut tanks chewed tobacco, and Onalaska folks of-
ten joked how the tobacco juice that he spit was
what made the kraut so good.
  When the tanks were full, a heavy wooden cover
was lifted on the top and the kraut was allowed to
work. The 40 tanks were kept in an open area be-
hind the factory; however, there was a roof sup-
ported on poles covering the area.
  During the time that the kraut worked, the brine
level had to be watched closely. There was a V-
shaped spout in the edge of each tank where the
brine level could be observed. If the kraut floated
to the top, some brine must be pumped off; and if
the kraut settled to the bottom, more brine must be
added. A certain level of brine was to be
maintained on the top of the kraut at all times. Dif-
ferent methods were devised to accomplish this. At
first, blocks were put on top of paper sheets under
the wooden cover; and later, large plastic sheets
covered the tanks and water was pumped onto the
sheets so it would weigh down the kraut.
   When the kraut had worked properly, it was
 ready to be canned. Students at the high school
 would always know the day the kraut tanks were
 opened because the sauerkraut aroma would drift
 up the hill to the school.



  The cured kraut was manually forked by a man
from inside the tank into a wheelbarrow on the
outside. Another man then pushed the wheelbar-
row along a plank that was laid from the tank up
into the factory where the huge cooker was located.
(The ground around the tanks was always wet and
muddy).
_     I                          -



- Is



Cookingkraut                      C(r',tv 5lilta S.i , ul helm

  After the cooker was filled, the kraut was cooked
at 150 degrees. When it was done, it was taken
from the cooker with a pitchfork again and piled
onto a sloping table so the hot water would drain
away. Women were seated along this table and a
chain belt moved along the side of it carrying the
empty cans to be filled. The women wore rubber
gloves and filled each can with the hot kraut by
hand. The first group of women filled the cans, the
second group cleaned off any kraut left outside of
the cans, and the third group compacted the kraut
with a wooden mallet. The net weight of each can
was periodically weighed to check for accuracy.
The cans were then sealed and labeled.



Women packing kraut into cans     Co,,ur,ii: Stlla S huittnhelm

  After World War I, in the 1920's, Onalaska's
kraut was seen and eaten all over the world. Mr.
W. I. Berg, who was the manager at that time, be-
gan to receive letters from local men who were
serving in the US Navy in the Pacific Fleet. They



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