Sardine fishing and canning was a major Maine waterfront industry from the 1870s to the 1970s. It began in Eastport in Washington County and spread down the coast. There were factories in Eastport that made sardine cans and labels. Eating sardines has gone out of fashion in the American market and supply has become limited. Now, there is only one operating sardine canning plant in the state. A hundred years ago, there were at least thirty different canneries up and down the coast.
Here are common small cans as well as larger quarter pounder cans from canneries in Eastport. This is a small sample of the dozens of brands that were once sent out of Maine, each with their own lithographed can.