Baker & Cutting Glass Works
History
Augustus Baker and Francis Cutting partnered in 1858 to establish the first successful glass works on the West Coast. Their primary focus was manufacturing pickle bottles to supply their pickle warehouse, but they also experimented with liquor, soda, and medicine bottles. In addition to food and spirits bottles, they produced glass insulators for the Pacific and Atlantic Telegraph Company. By February 1860, Baker and Cutting had parted ways, although Cutting attempted to continue the glass works on his own.
The most enduring testament to their brief operation is the embossed Baker & Cutting pickle bottle, found in nearly every color of the rainbow, from dark amber to aqua. To this day, only one intact example of this legendary bottle is known, in a light green coloration.
Advanced western bottle diggers have unearthed numerous broken Baker & Cutting pickle bottles, many made of unusually colorful and exceptionally crude glass. It remains one of the great mysteries of western bottle collecting that so many broken examples have been recovered while, after more than 70 years of prospecting on the West Coast, only a single intact example is known. Rest assured, another example of this remarkable bottle will someday surface.