Vintage 1950s-1960s Large Patriotic White House Brand Melons Crate Label 🍈 J-B Distributing, Los Angeles, CA

🏛️ When Did America Put the White House on a Melon Crate — and Why Can't You Stop Looking at It?

Size: 13 1/2" x 6"

Here is my favorite thing about this label: it sells melons, and there is not a single melon in the picture. You get the White House, its north front in an oval, and the confidence to say that was enough. It is WHITE HOUSE Brand California Melons, distributed by J-B Distributing Co. of Los Angeles, a lithographed crate end label in New Old Stock that never saw a crate. The picture is nice, but the story behind the name is better, and it turns out to be a story about who owned a trademark.

📜 Whose White House Is It?

The name was not J-B's to begin with. The WHITE HOUSE trademark was first used on April 1, 1926, and registered on January 11, 1927, by Emery & Kavanagh Co., a California copartnership, for fresh grapes and fresh lettuce. J-B Distributing Co. is listed beside them as an owner on that same record and is the owner of record today, so the brand ended up with J-B.

It was not the only Kavanagh mark J-B came to hold. In 1928 Emery & Kavanagh registered EKCO, "The Brand That Repeats," for lettuce, tomatoes, cauliflower, sweet potatoes and cantaloupes, first used in September 1926, and J-B owns that one now too. Then there is WINTERHAVEN, first used in 1939 and registered on April 4, 1950, for fresh vegetables and melons. That registration was held by Jones & Kavanagh Co., Ltd., and J-B owns it now as well.

And the artwork traveled with the name. The same White House label exists with Kavanagh Distributing Co. in J-B's place, a JK shield monogram at the left, and the line "Copyright by Jones & Kavanagh Co. Ltd." Same oval, same layout, different names. Dealers date those Kavanagh printings anywhere from the 1940s to the 1960s.

So were Kavanagh and J-B two firms that hit on the same patriotic idea? No. The trademark records show successive owners: the brand and its picture passed from the Kavanagh firms to J-B, and J-B went on printing it under its own name and its own copyright line. That makes the copyright line on this label the claim of the later owner, not the signature of the person who painted the White House, and nothing I know of names the artist. The year J-B took the Kavanagh brands over, and who Emery and Kavanagh were, are open questions I would love to see a local historian close.

🏢 J-B Distributing Co., Los Angeles

J-B collected brands. Besides the Kavanagh marks it came to own WHITE STAR, filed in 1924 by the California Vegetable Union, and STRONGHEART, filed in 1940 by Engebretson-Grupe Co. It filed its own marks too: JB in 1966, HIGH HAT and STRONGHEART in 1977, STRONG-HEART and GOLD HARVEST in 1978. Its own WHITE HOUSE registration was filed in August 1966 and granted on January 24, 1967, for deciduous fruits, melons, fresh vegetables and fresh grapes. That is the first WHITE HOUSE record to name melons, which suits a label that says CALIFORNIA MELONS.

Public business records place J-B at 735 East Fourth Street in Los Angeles, one version written "Los Angeles 13," the old postal-zone style that began in big cities in 1943 and gave way to five-digit ZIP codes on July 1, 1963. Another listing gives Suite 1235 at 727 West Seventh Street. The partners named on the later filings are H. J. Escher Jr. and Don W. Moore, with three California corporations: W. J. Job, Inc., B.A.B. Corp. and KDN Enterprises. They are the partnership at renewal time and not necessarily the founders, and what the "J-B" stands for is still an open question.

J-B had other brands. A Cal Poly Pomona grape-label collection lists one called A-Okay, dated about 1940 to 1970. J-B printed a Cantaloupes version of the White House label with a cut cantaloupe beside the building, and it printed a smaller version of this melon label, about 4 by 9 3/4 inches.

🖨️ The Printer: Stecher-Traung of San Francisco

Along the bottom edge there is a line of microtype: (c) STECHER-TRAUNG S. F., CALIF. That is the lithographer. The firm began in San Francisco in 1911 as Pingree-Traung, became Traung Label and Lithography in 1916, and combined with the Stecher Lithograph Company of Rochester, New York, founded in 1887, to become Stecher-Traung. Sources disagree about when. One says 1926 and another says 1936, and the name was certainly in use by 1941, when the Stecher-Traung Lithograph Corporation filed a trademark of its own. In 1966 the firm combined with Schmidt Lithograph as Stecher-Traung-Schmidt, which ran until 1994, and other accounts have International Paper buying it that same year. A plain Stecher-Traung line, without the Schmidt name, points to a printing before 1966. California's label lithographers, among them Schmidt, Stecher-Traung and Louis Roesch, employed artists who worked somewhere between fine art and commercial design.

🕰️ When Was It Printed?

The label carries no year of its own, so the date comes from the paper trail. Kavanagh had the brand first and the J-B version is the later owner's reprint. A Kavanagh mark was still registered to a Kavanagh firm in April 1950. J-B's own filings do not begin until 1966, and the printer's line is the plain Stecher-Traung of before that year. All of that points to a printing in the 1950s or the 1960s, and the dealers who have handled this same J-B melon label agree, one calling it 1950s and another 1960s. That makes it vintage. The exact year J-B took the brand over is the missing piece.

🍈 What a Crate Label Was For

A crate label was a paper label pasted on the end of a wooden shipping crate, and its job was to introduce the brand to a wholesale buyer walking through a produce house. Los Angeles was a hub for that trade, and distributors kept main offices there because the rail lines, the truck routes and the wholesale buyers all met in the city. The melons, hand-harvested in California's growing districts such as the Central Valley, were packed in lugs, moved by truck and rail, and sold on to markets across the country. By the time a crate was emptied and broken down, its label went with it, which is why the survivors are labels that never got pasted. It is an original lithograph, not a reproduction, made from hand-separated color plates run through the press several times. The brand was called WHITE HOUSE from the day it was first used in 1926, and the picture simply takes the name literally. Patriotic imagery of every kind, from eagles and the Capitol to the flag and the President's house, was a common way for a produce brand to say quality and pride.

🖼️ Display Ideas

• 🏠 Frame it by itself in an entryway, study or kitchen, where guests will stop and ask about it. Acid-free mats and UV-filtering glass, away from direct sun, will keep the paper happy.
• 🗂️ Hang it with other crate labels or vintage American advertising. Its wide shape plays well against tall citrus labels.
• 🍽️ Put it in a kitchen or dining room, where food advertising has always felt at home.
• 🏛️ Use it in an Americana or politics corner beside maps, presidential portraits and other patriotic ephemera.
• 🎁 Give it to a history lover, a California native, a political junkie or the person who has everything.

🎁 Who Collects These

Crate label collectors come at it from several directions. Some collect California produce labels, some chase patriotic and presidential imagery, and some just love the commercial lithography. The label speaks to all of them, plus anyone who collects White House memorabilia or Los Angeles history. Little to no wear, and it was never pasted to a crate.

Crate labels are a reminder of a bygone era, and in my opinion the lithography behind them has never been matched. Museums and art institutes have galleries dedicated to them, and have been acquiring crate labels for their permanent collections for decades. Picture one hanging in your own home instead of in a museum.

🏷️ What Is Printed on This Label

• PRODUCE OF U.S.A.
• White House
• BRAND
• CALIFORNIA
• MELONS
• DISTRIBUTED BY
• J-B DISTRIBUTING CO.
• MAIN OFFICE
• LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
• T. M. REG. U.S. PAT.OFF.
• COPYRIGHT BY
• J-B DISTRIBUTING CO.
• (c) STECHER-TRAUNG S. F., CALIF.