It is an 11,000 ft2 cannery, built in 1936 by President Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA), and was sold to the City of Kirkland in 1941 for $44.79.

[1][2] It was operated as a cooperative to benefit the poor during the Great Depression, along with three other WPA plants at Kent, Wapato, and Wenatchee.

[3] Citizens could bring in crops, fish, and chicken, to be canned at no charge in exchange for donating one third of the product to "state institutions".

[1] After the war it was leased to local businesspeople and used for private concerns, then sold to them in 1974.

[7] Around 2006, the city was looking for a new owner to preserve the building,[8] and in late 2014, the cannery building was sold to local resident and Philanthropist Carl Bradley who will preserve and restore the Cannery, returning it back to serve the community once again.