Iconic Old Bay

Created in Baltimore, Old Bay was founded in 1939 by Gustav Brunn, a Jewish refugee who owned a spice company in Germany. Arrested during the Nazis Kristallnacht, Brunn was shipped to Buchenwald Concentration Camp. Within several weeks and a hefty sum of money, he was released and immediately shipped to America, specifically Baltimore, with his wife, two children, and a spice grinder.

He was denied employment by McCormick, so he founded the Baltimore Spice Company and created the secret formula for Old Bay seasoning, specifically for seafood, and marketed it to the businesses that lined the Harbor. Originally named “Delicious Brand Shrimp and Crab Seasoning,” it was rebranded Old Bay after the Chesapeake’s Old Bay Steamer Line. Today, Old Bay is used on Utz crab chips, “Crabby Bo” covers the lips of a glass of National Bohemian beer, and Flying Dog brewery has a summer ale, Dead Rise, made with Old Bay. It is so popular that Old Bay hot sauce for the Super Bowl sold out in 40 minutes. So did Pepperidge Farms’ Old Bay Goldfish Crackers. True Temper Sports Company released a lacrosse stick with Old Bay decals. Currently they too are sold out.

McCormick’s departure from Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in 1970 signaled a change coming to American industry within Baltimore. Attracted by the nation’s deepest harbor and modern railroad system, industrial manufacturing giants has long flocked to the harbor, especially in the 19th century. Proctor and Gamble, Pepsi, Western Electric, Allied Chemical, and steel mills in Sparrows Point called Baltimore home. Eventually, new inventions in building infrastructure and a need for more space were making old centers of commerce obsolete. Blue collar jobs and the workingman’s paradise were being replaced by white collar business. Today, only one major manufacturing business remains in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, Domino Sugar.