As we continue our articles on your collections, this week I will give you some information on a very popular collection, fruit jars.

Fruit jars are still common today, but did you ever stop and think about how they got started?

The year was 1795, and the French government wanted a method to preserve food to feed their troops. In 1800, Napoleon Bonaparte offered an award of 12,000 francs, about $4,000, to anyone who could come up with a plan for food preservation for the armies. He often stated, “An army marches on its stomach.” In 1810, after some 15 years of experimenting, a French chef, Nicolas Appert, came up with the invention and won the prize. He invented the airtight food preservation known by many as canning. The cooked food was put into a jar and sealed with wax. Appert is known today as the “father of canning,” and the rest is history.

Louisiana Treasures Museum has a large collection of jars, and here are a few of the names that may also be in your collection: Atlas, Knox, Acme, Root, Corona, Presto, Mason, Ball and Leotric. I own and operate the museum, which is located five miles west of the Ponchatoula exit of Interstate 55. For more information or hours of operation, call 225-294-8352.

Wayne Norwood is a lieutenant with the St. John Parish Sheriff’s Department and owner and operator of the Louisiana Treasures Museum located at 10290 Highway 22, West Pontchatoula.