Vintage 1940s Foot High Melons Crate Label 🍈 — F. H. Hogue Co., Firebaugh CA & Yuma AZ — Risqué Pinup

Who Packed Foot High Melons? 🍈 Foot High Melons, F. H. Hogue Co. of Firebaugh and Yuma

Size: 10" x 4" ~ Unused, never put on a crate.

This one always makes me smile. A laughing strawberry-blonde in green satin is lying back on the ground with one leg kicked straight up in the air, green high heel and all, right between two giant cream letters that say FOOT and HIGH. Her foot lands just about level with the word HIGH, and that's the whole joke. MELONS is set in yellow beside her on a solid black ground, and it's a little risqué for a melon crate, which is exactly why collectors love it.

🏷️ What's Printed on It

• FOOT HIGH
• MELONS
• PRODUCE OF U.S.A.
• PACKED AND SHIPPED BY F. H. HOGUE CO., Firebaugh Calif., Yuma Arizona

There's a line of tiny red print down in the lower left corner, and the back is blank, with the big letters showing through in reverse.

📜 The Picture Is the Trademark

F. H. Hogue Company registered this exact picture. They filed FOOT HIGH as a trademark for fresh vegetables on April 24, 1943, and it was registered on December 7, 1943 as Reg. No. 404,574. The drawing on file with the Patent Office is this very gal, laughing on her back with her leg kicked up between FOOT and HIGH, and Hogue said they had been using it since December 10, 1938. The registration finally expired in 1986.

Hogue liked a pin-up. The same day they filed FOOT HIGH they also filed ON RUSH, a red-haired gal running with her skirt blowing up, and BLUSHING, and that December they added BUXOM, another pin-up melon label. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco keep Hogue's On Rush and Blushing labels in their Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts.

🌵 Firebaugh and Yuma

Firebaugh sits on the west side of California's San Joaquin Valley, and it goes back to 1854, when Andrew Davidson Firebaugh set up a trading post and ferry on the San Joaquin River. He was a Virginian who served with the Texas Mounted Riflemen in the Mexican War, came to California in 1849 and fought under Major James D. Savage on the expedition that discovered Yosemite. Firebaugh's Ferry became a station on the great Butterfield Overland Stage route, and he built the first road over Pacheco Pass.

Yuma sits way down on the Colorado River in the Arizona desert, and today up to 90% of the leafy vegetables grown in the U.S. from November to March come from there, thanks to about eleven hours of sunshine a day and Colorado River water. Hogue's trademark papers list the company at Yuma.

🖼️ Display

Crate Labels are a reminder of a bygone era but the amazing lithography process is unparalleled even to this day in my opinion. Museums and Art Institutes have galleries dedicated to them and more and more collectors are seeking these out to preserve their history. Once the limited supply for sale is gone and on display with collectors or in galleries then they will be very difficult to acquire.

Imagine this amazing vintage advertising hanging as home decor in any room of your home instead of a museum!