I love old pottery or stoneware advertising pieces, and this Trask Fish Company fish depicted barrel is one of my favorites. The illustration did not leave much to the imagination as to what the company was selling out of the barrels…Fish!! In particular, herring, pickled and not. This barrel features words in german still at a time when many residents were still speaking their native foreign languages upon arriving into America. Hamburger Fett Haringe “Ready for Use”. Not all Trask jugs or crocks have fish images on them, but many that are known today do, mostly in blue, but also local fish barrels have been found in black and orange stenciling also.
The Trask Fish Company was located at 510 N. 2nd Street in 1902 in downtown St. Louis, MO. However some jugs have an address as 510-512 N. 2nd Street, so whether or not that expansion was before 1902 is unknown to the author. There were several prominent fish wholesalers besides the Trask operating in downtown Saint Louis at the time, including the Haase & Sons, Proctor-Connell, and Meletio Fish and Oyster Companies. Some of these companies also have stoneware barrel and misc size stoneware advertising pieces still in existance also.