Backer, Henry H.

Henry H. Backer, born near Downieville in Sierra County, California, on October 27, 1872, was a highly successful rancher of strong character and original initiative. He was the son of Henry Backer, a sturdy pioneer who settled in Sierra County in 1859 before relocating to Fresno in 1878 with his wife, Augusta Busch, and their five children. Henry H. benefited from the Fresno school system and Heald’s Business College, which prepared him for a brief stint as a bookkeeper in San Francisco before he turned his attention to viticulture. He joined his family to incorporate the Backer Vineyard Company, through which they owned and operated a highly productive 120-acre vineyard located eight miles east of Fresno. As pioneer growers of table grapes, the family cultivated various varieties including Emperors, Malagas, Cornichons, Muscats, and Servian Blue or Fresno Beauty grapes.

Faced with intense market competition from northern California Tokay grapes, Henry travelled to New York City and began investigating new methods to successfully store and preserve table grapes. This led him to partner with commission merchant Charles Thurston and seek help from the Viticultural Department at Washington to experiment with redwood sawdust as a substitute for cork packing. After testing different methods from 1908 to 1912, they successfully developed a coarse redwood sawdust treatment that allowed Fresno County table grapes to be shipped safely to cold storage facilities worldwide. This innovative packing breakthrough soon became universal, bringing great wealth to the state and significantly increasing the local value of Fresno County lands. Beyond his viticultural work and his ownership of a 760-acre grain farm north of Sanger, Henry remained a bachelor, a loyal Democrat, and an active member of both the Odd Fellows and the Elks.