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June 23, 2017 / Places and landmarks

Pittsburgh’s Candyland

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Catherine Burns of the North Side packs a shipment of Zagnut bars. Picture taken July 6, 1972. (Pittsburgh Press)
Catherine Burns of the North Side packs a shipment of Zagnut bars. Picture taken July 6, 1972. (Pittsburgh Press)
This undated photo features a member of Clark's "Center of Attraction Zoo." The television ad campaign showed cartoon animals crooning "I want a Clark Bar!" and ran during the 1960s. (Pittsburgh Press)
This undated photo features a member of Clark’s “Center of Attraction Zoo.” The television ad campaign showed cartoon animals crooning “I want a Clark Bar!” and ran during the 1960s. (Pittsburgh Press)
Leaf workers pack Clark Bars into boxes after the bars come off a conveyor belt from the wrapping machine. Picture published June 2, 1987. (Pittsburgh Press)
Leaf workers pack Clark Bars into boxes after the bars come off a conveyor belt from the wrapping machine. Picture published June 2, 1987. (Pittsburgh Press)
William Gross, a flavor blender, tests moisture content of raw chicle. Chicle, the gum of the sapodilla tree, served as the basis of chewing gum at the time. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
William Gross, a flavor blender, tests moisture content of raw chicle. Chicle, the gum of the sapodilla tree, served as the basis of chewing gum at the time. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
This undated picture shows a Clark Bar window display in Downtown Pittsburgh. (Pittsburgh Press)
This undated picture shows a Clark Bar window display in Downtown Pittsburgh. (Pittsburgh Press)
These candy bars are finished and ready for wrapping. Most of them were headed abroad, as 80 percent of the plant's production went to military personnel during World War II and continued to feed service people overseas. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
These candy bars are finished and ready for wrapping. Most of them were headed abroad, as 80 percent of the plant’s production went to military personnel during World War II and continued to feed service people overseas. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)

“I want a Clark Bar!”

Though usually heard coming from the mouth of a cartoon giraffe or camel in 1960s television commercials, that declaration was just as common in Pittsburgh grocery stores at any point throughout the last century.

With a history that stretches back to 1884, the Clark Bar is as connected to Pittsburgh as Heinz ketchup or Iron City beer. It would easily be Pennsylvania’s biggest contribution to the candy world, if not for one little-known operation just east of Harrisburg.

When we at The Digs realized June was national candy month, we decided to celebrate by dipping into Pittsburgh’s long confectionery history. And at the core of that history are the products of the D.L. Clark Company. From Clark Bars to Teaberry Gum, Clark treats traveled all over the world from the company’s seven-story North Side factory, and it all began with a young Irish immigrant who was short on change.

Born in 1864, David Clark went to work early. He found a job as a newsboy and soap salesman when he was 6 years old, knocking on doors for pennies. Two years later, he would immigrate to the United States with his family and settle in the City of Allegheny, which Pittsburgh later absorbed as the North Side.

Clark supposedly had an intense sweet tooth as a child and was often scolded by his parents for spending money on candy. He didn’t listen. When he was 16, Clark hired a friend to make batches of candy, which Clark would sell from the two back rooms he rented at a local shop. Despite limited resources, Clark’s chocolate business earned a loyal following, and the small operation steadily expanded.

Clark’s Teaberry gum debuted in 1900 after the company secured a patent for “easy-chewing” gum, inspired by the wintergreen flavor of mountain teaberry leaves Clark chewed as a child. The gum reached its top popularity during the 1960s, largely due to a Herb Alpert commercial featuring “The Teaberry Shuffle.”

Clark purchased the James McClung Candy and Cracker factory in 1911 and soon found success with a much larger production capacity, bringing his gum and candy operations under one roof for the first time.

“In our plant on the Northside [sic] we make of chocolate drops alone 50,000 pails, or 1,500,000 pounds, or approximately 97,500,000 chocolate drops a year,” a 1921 ad run in The Pittsburgh Press claims. “This is only one of fifty kinds of fine quality ‘pound’ candy.” 

The D.L. Clark Co. plant sits mostly empty ahead of what would prove to be a temporary closure. Picture taken Jan. 1990. (Pittsburgh Press)
The D.L. Clark Co. plant sits mostly empty ahead of what would prove to be a temporary closure. Picture taken Jan. 1990. (Pittsburgh Press)
This 1921 ad claims that the D.L. Clark Co. factory produces millions of candies each day. (Pittsburgh Press)
This 1921 ad claims that the D.L. Clark Co. factory produces millions of candies each day. (Pittsburgh Press)

Business picked up significantly in 1917, when the U.S. first joined World War I. By this time, Clark was making about 150 varieties of candy, and he immediately offered to help feed the Americans stationed overseas. But his company’s signature chocolate drops proved too cumbersome to ship overseas, and military officials asked Clark to devise a product that would be easier to transport.

The result was the Clark Bar, a 4 inch, 5 cent chocolate bar with a crunchy peanut butter core. The Clark Bar, and its iconic blue and red wrapper, was a massive success and remained popular well after the war ended. By 1929, the factory was churning out more than 900,000 candy bars every day.

“This would be equivalent to more than 17,000 miles [of Clark Bars laid end-to-end] in a year of 300 working days, more than two-thirds of the distance around the earth and almost a tenth of the distance to the moon,” The Pittsburgh Press estimated in 1929.

The Clark Bar's core includes peanut butter and caramel mixed into a thick taffy. After the taffy was cooked, but before the other ingredients were added, it was poured on a giant griddle to cool. The original caption says it resembles a "golden omelet." Once it became lukewarm, the taffy was ready for pulling. This worker scrapes off a batch as another begins to pour out. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
The Clark Bar’s core includes peanut butter and caramel mixed into a thick taffy. After the taffy was cooked, but before the other ingredients were added, it was poured on a giant griddle to cool. The original caption says it resembles a “golden omelet.” Once it became lukewarm, the taffy was ready for pulling. This worker scrapes off a batch as another begins to pour out. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
Workers added peanut butter and caramel to the taffy in order to make the Clark Bars' filling. A prepared batch weighed about 100 lb. and had to be carried to a spinning machine on a stretcher. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
Workers added peanut butter and caramel to the taffy in order to make the Clark Bars’ filling. A prepared batch weighed about 100 lb. and had to be carried to a spinning machine on a stretcher. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
Chewing gum is mixed in half-ton batches in this machine. When this picture was taken, the company was producing 6,000,0000 sticks of gum per day and employed 400. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
Chewing gum is mixed in half-ton batches in this machine. When this picture was taken, the company was producing 6,000,0000 sticks of gum per day and employed 400. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
This 1000 lb. batch of gum is rolled into slabs and covered in a layer of sugar powder. Another series of rollers thins the gum into large sheets that are the thicknewss of a single stick. The firm produced about 45,000 lb. of gum a day at this point. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
This 1000 lb. batch of gum is rolled into slabs and covered in a layer of sugar powder. Another series of rollers thins the gum into large sheets that are the thicknewss of a single stick. The firm produced about 45,000 lb. of gum a day at this point. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
When the sheets of gum leave the rolling machine, this machine cut sheets into individual sticks. The gum is pliable and easily broken by this point of the production process. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
When the sheets of gum leave the rolling machine, this machine cut sheets into individual sticks. The gum is pliable and easily broken by this point of the production process. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
The woman at the right feeds individual sticks of gum into a trough. Several seconds later, the girl at the left assembles the wrapped and packaged packs of gum in a box. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
The woman at the right feeds individual sticks of gum into a trough. Several seconds later, the girl at the left assembles the wrapped and packaged packs of gum in a box. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)

David Clark died in 1939, but the factory continued under the direction of his six sons and six daughters. Just as World War I yielded Clark’s flagship product and a financial boost, the years surrounding World War II would prove to be the company’s best.

Clark Bars were such a staple of military diets during the war that when a strike halted production twice in 1942 and 1943, the federal government intervened and officially deemed the candy an “essential wartime product.” One letter the Post-Gazette quoted in 1999 came from an observer at Guadalcanal, who said the candy bars served as an unmatched source of comfort for the men fighting.

“They could take the bombings and the sniping, and they could get along without vegetables and fresh meat,” the observer wrote. “They wouldn’t yearn so much for the bright lights and the movies and the girlfriends — if only they had some [candy]. Candy — just candy. And there isn’t any.”

The Clark family sold the company and factory to Beatrice Foods in the mid-1950s, which in turn sold the company to Leaf Inc. in 1983. By this time, the firm had fallen on hard times and shrank considerably. Clark products struggled to find a national foothold as competitors such as Hershey and Nestle grew, despite consistently high sales in Pittsburgh and the midwest.

Leaf, one of the largest candy companies in the world when it purchased Clark, announced in 1985 that it would close the Pittsburgh plant and move all operations to Chicago. Fearing the loss of more than 100 jobs, Mayor Richard Caliguiri negotiated a package of financial incentives and workers agreed to wage concessions. As part of the agreement, the city purchased Leaf a new facility in O’Hara to replace the outdated North Side plant.

(From left to right) Erkki Railo, President and CEO of Leaf Inc.; Sam Papa, President of Local #12 Bakery and Confectionary Workers; and Pittsburgh Mayor Richard Caliguiri hold a press conference to announce that the D.L. Clark candy factory would remain in Pittsburgh through 1991. Picture published Feb. 13, 1986. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
(From left to right) Erkki Railo, President and CEO of Leaf Inc.; Sam Papa, President of Local #12 Bakery and Confectionary Workers; and Pittsburgh Mayor Richard Caliguiri hold a press conference to announce that the D.L. Clark candy factory would remain in Pittsburgh through 1991. Picture published Feb. 13, 1986. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Local 12 Bakery and Confectionery workers picket the D.L. Clark Co. at Martindale St. during a strike. Picture taken Aug. 13, 1959. (Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph)
Local 12 Bakery and Confectionery workers picket the D.L. Clark Co. at Martindale St. during a strike. Picture taken Aug. 13, 1959. (Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph)
Clark bars move down a conveyor belt to be wrapped and packaged for shipment throughout the world. Picture published June 15, 1961. (Pittsburgh Press)
Clark bars move down a conveyor belt to be wrapped and packaged for shipment throughout the world. Picture published June 15, 1961. (Pittsburgh Press)
Unofficially labeled the "Largest Candy Bar in the World," a 3,100 lb. Clark Bar is brought to Kennywood Park. The bar was an attempt to break a Guinness World Record. Picture taken Aug. 14, 1981. (Pittsburgh Press)
Unofficially labeled the “Largest Candy Bar in the World,” a 3,100 lb. Clark Bar is brought to Kennywood Park. The bar was an attempt to break a Guinness World Record. Picture taken Aug. 14, 1981. (Pittsburgh Press)
Tony Murgid saws apart the "Largest Candy Bar in the World," which was about 15 ft. long and 20 in. thick. Pieces were handed out for Kennywood visitors to enjoy. Picture taken Aug. 14, 1981. (Pittsburgh Press)
Tony Murgid saws apart the “Largest Candy Bar in the World,” which was about 15 ft. long and 20 in. thick. Pieces were handed out for Kennywood visitors to enjoy. Picture taken Aug. 14, 1981. (Pittsburgh Press)

Six years later, the same scenario played out. This time, a new buyer came to the rescue when local entrepreneur Michael Carlow purchased the D.L. Clark Company from Leaf in May 1991.

“All the Clark Bar needs is special attention, and it will do fine,” Carlow told the Post-Gazette in 1992. “There is, after all, a certain magic about candy.”

But Carlow was unable to turn the struggling confectionery around, and the Clark company went through several more owners without much progress. The old company’s holdings were independently reorganized and renamed to Clark Bar America in 1995, and it was bought again by New England Confectionary Company, also known as Necco, in 1999.

Necco moved operations to Massachusetts and continues to produce the Clark Bar on a limited scale. Its coconut-coated sibling, the Zagnut Bar, was sold to Hershey, which currently produces it. Today, the historic D.L. Clark Company building houses the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and the old Clark Candy sign sits at the end of a parking lot.

Pitt dental student Mark Grebosky, a “taffy puller,” wrestles with an armload of taffy. Working in the Clark factory was a summer job for Grebosky, who is currently a dentist in Maryland. He’s aware of the irony that he made sugary taffy while studying oral health but says he “wasn’t psychologically damaged” by the experience. This picture currently hangs in his living room and Grebosky says his family still teases him about it. Picture published July 25, 1982. (Pittsburgh Press)

The Clark Bar may now be more novelty candy than Halloween staple, but since NECC returned to the candy’s original formula, its appeal remains the same. Guido Ferrari, who worked in the original factory for 44 years and spoke to the Post-Gazette when it finally closed, did his best to sum up what many of those outside Pittsburgh never quite seemed to grasp.

“[The Clark Bar] is nice and crispy. You can sink your teeth into it.”

The Clark Candy sign glows atop the D.L. Clark Co. building on Pittsburgh's North Side. Picture taken April 3, 1986. (Pittsburgh Press)
The Clark Candy sign glows atop the D.L. Clark Co. building on Pittsburgh’s North Side. Picture taken April 3, 1986. (Pittsburgh Press)
This machine coats Clark Bars with chocolate and gives each a spiral design. The design is made by tiny streams of chocolate pouring from a container which swings from left to right. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
This machine coats Clark Bars with chocolate and gives each a spiral design. The design is made by tiny streams of chocolate pouring from a container which swings from left to right. Picture taken March 21, 1948. (Pittsburgh Press)
A bowl of Clark Bars. Picture taken Feb. 13, 1986. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
A bowl of Clark Bars. Picture taken Feb. 13, 1986. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

 

— Matt Moret

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Topics related to this:1930s 1940s 1950s food industry North Side Things that are gone

Matt Moret

Matt Moret is a web associate for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He works as a designer for NewsSlide and oversees The Digs on Instagram (@digspgh).

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