(Editor’s note: first of two parts)
Chattanooga has been home over the years to a number of bakeries. One of the earliest and most successful was founded in 1887 by two Scottish immigrants, J.B. Cameron and William Barr. The two visited Chattanooga shortly after arriving in the U.S. and saw a city with expanding railroad and river traffic and a growing population fueled by manufacturing and industrial activity as the ideal location for their new business.
With bakery and marketing skills honed back home in the Highlands, Cameron and Barr began with one industrial oven having an output of about 365 loaves per day and grew over 25 years to become a thriving bakery with a thoroughly modern plant producing more than 9,000 loaves daily. Its distribution center serviced much of Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia.
Cameron-Barr Bakery celebrated its silver anniversary on July 22, 1912. The business by then had added a second story to the facilities, expanded the bakery, and increased sales through an extensive meat market with staff butchers who responded to onsite requests. While the bakery already boasted four large commercial ovens, the fall of 1912 witnessed another growth spurt when the company added additional units, expanding production of its renowned “Butter Krust” bread.
Shipping territory grew significantly as the new equipment enabled “bakers to mix the dough, bake the bread and wrap it without the dough or bread being touched by the hands of workmen.” The bakery proudly proclaimed its “sanitary conditions” and expanded production, aided by large mixers that handled “five barrels of flour at a time.” The Chattanooga Daily Times noted in its article, “Progress of Cameron-Barr Bakery in Twenty-five Years,” that much of the success of the bakery was owed to the “personal attention given to the business by Messrs. Cameron and Barr.”