Bits and pieces of my Carnation Mush research are all over the web, but it’s time to put it all in one place.
This post is inspired by the Carnation Mush sign on Market Street, which is one of my favorite ghost signs in the entire Bay Area. Revealed in 2011 when the adjacent building was demolished, I never expected it to still be here going on fifteen years later! That sign has an uncanny ability to survive new development, an ability that most of San Francisco’s ghost signs seem to lack. So if any San Francisco ghost sign deserves a detailed hagiography, it would be this Carnation Mush Sign (and its twin in North Beach).
What Was Carnation Mush
First things first, let’s get some of the backstory out of the way – what is Carnation Mush? Carnation Mush was a subsidiary of Albers Bros Milling Company that sold hot breakfast cereals. You might have seen another Albers Bros ghost sign on the Victoria Theater in the Mission, or next to Northwest Broadway Bridge in Portland, Oregon if you’re the traveling type.
Albers Bros was formed in Portland, Oregon in 1893 by German immigrant Bernard Albers and officially incorporated in 1901 by Bernard and four of his brothers. They sold various kinds of flours, grains and cereal products; some marketed under the Alber’s name, while others were marketed under sub-brands like Carnation, Peacock, and Violet.
By the late 1920’s, all five Alber’s brothers had either passed (Bernard died in 1908), been arrested for violating the Federal Espionage Act (that would be Henry, who also died in 1927), or were nearing retirement (the remaining three brothers). After sustained trademark pressures by the Carnation Milk Products Company – who did not appreciate the name of their Carnation line – they officially acquired the Albers Bros Milling Company in 1929. While this was largely done to protect their brand and name, a milk company buying a cereal company does make a lot of sense in a business MBA kinda way. Carnation Milk would continue to run Alber’s Bros until 1984 when it was sold to Nestle. Albers Brothers still exists! It is under the Continental Mills umbrella, although its offerings have been reduced to yellow corn meal, white corn meal, and quick grits.
The oldest online references to Carnation Mush I have found are from 1902, so it seems like they launched the brand pretty soon after incorporating the Albers Bros Milling Company. The most recent references I have found are from 1940, so the brand made it to be about 38 years old and was maintained by Carnation Milk Products for over a decade after the Albers Bros acquisition.
Not bad for having what we’d now consider an atrocious name.
What Were The Three Kinds Of Carnation Mush
There are a lot of inaccuracies about this online, mainly because what “mush” is varies by region, but based on Carnation’s own contemporaneous advertising the three kinds of Carnation Mush are rolled oats, wheat flakes, and granulated wheat. Essentially, hot breakfast cereals akin to Cream Of Wheat.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14762640901/
The Carnation Mush Sign On Market Street
As stated earlier, the Carnation Mush sign on 1586 Market Street was revealed in 2011 when the abandoned building next door was torn down. Known as the Miramar Apartments,1586 Market was built in 1912, replacing a block of single story storefronts and warehouses built in the immediate aftermath of the 1906 earthquake. The formerly adjacent neighbor was part of this post-earthquake wave of construction, having been constructed in 1907 as a furniture showroom.
Which presents an odd dillema… If the neighboring building was built in 1907, and the Miramar in 1912, how was the Carnation Mush sign blocked in, let alone painted? My assumption – which I am still looking for concrete information on – is that the adjacent neighbor was originally a single story and was remodeled some time after the painting of the Carnation Mush sign. That would explain how the sign was painted and blocked in, as well as why the upper and lower stories on the adjacent neighbor do not match.
The OTHER Carnation Mush Sign On Market Street
There are no known photos of 1586 Market from 1912-1917. By the time the earliest known photos of the building were taken in April 1917, the formerly adjacent neighbor was a full three stories tall and the Carnation Mush sign is no longer visible. This makes it hard to date the age of the sign using the historic record. But more on that later…
OpenSFHistory / wnp36.01573.jpg
However, a different set of photos, taken from a different angle in July 1917, reveals an interesting fact – there were once TWO Carnation Mush signs painted on 1586 Market. Repeating signs across a wall or building was somewhat common in sign painting of this era. Once the sign painter was hired, the design made, and the scaffolding put up, it was trivially more expensive to have them paint the ad there one or two more times. You can see this marketing tactic on multiple buildings in San Francisco, including 921 Post (two Owl Cigar signs), 725 Geary (also two Owl Cigar signs) and 555 Eddy (two Coca Cola signs)
By repeating the sign twice on the building – once close to street level in front of the building, and once near the roofline in back of the building – they would have been able to effectively advertise to people both near and far on Market Street.
https://sfmta.photoshelter.com/search/result/I0000W4paYEsEH3k
Is there any trace of this second Carnation Mush sign left? Yes! If you look up at the main Carnation Mush sign today you’ll see that it has a red/orange ground, a thin white border, a thicker green border, and a tiny line of black. When we look towards the back of the building, where much of the wall has been painted in graffiti abatement paint, we can see a tiny sliver of the same red/orange, white, green, and black pattern
That is all that remains of the second Carnation Mush sign., which would have been painted over some time after July 1981.
https://opensfhistory.org/Display/wnp32.2714A.jpg
The Carnation Mush Sign In North Beach
In June of 2026 the Verdi Apartments at the corner of Columbus, Union, and Powell was demolished after being deemed in danger of imminent collapse, During the demolition process, a second Carnation Mush sign was revealed on adjacent 575-579 Columbus. Matching the color scheme and general design of the Market Street sign(s), it was most likely painted by the same artist. While the photographic record of this building is spotty and no historic pictures of this sign exist, it is a fairly easy sign to date based on property information. We know 575-579 Columbus was built in 1912 and the Verdi Apartments in 1914, which would place this sign’s painting date between 1912 and 1913.
Age Of The San Francisco Carnation Mush Ghost Signs
If we know the North Beach sign was painted in 1912/1913, and the Market Street sign looks like it was painted by the same artist, can we confirm that it was also painted in 1912/1913? Not definitively, but both 575-579 Columbus and 1586 Market were built in 1912, which means both of them would have been available and “on the market” for sign painting in the same time frame. That means it’s possible they were painted at the same time, as part of the same ad campaign.