Skip to main content
Ingenium Logo

You are leaving IngeniumCanada.org

✖


This link leads to an external website that Ingenium does not control. Please read the third-party’s privacy policies before entering personal information or conducting a transaction on their site.

Have questions? Review our Privacy Statement

Vous quittez IngeniumCanada.org

✖


Ce lien mène à un site Web externe qu'Ingenium ne contrôle pas. Veuillez lire les politiques de confidentialité des tiers avant de partager des renseignements personnels ou d'effectuer une transaction sur leur site.

Questions? Consultez notre Énoncé de confidentialité

Ingenium The Channel

Langue

  • Français
Search Toggle

Menu des liens rapides

  • Ingenium Locations
  • Shop
  • Donate
  • Join
Menu

Main Navigation

  • Browse
    • Categories
    • Media Types
    • Boards
    • Featured Stories
  • About
    • About The Channel
    • Content Partners

Joseph Coyle

This article was originally written and submitted as part of a Canada 150 Project, the Innovation Storybook, to crowdsource stories of Canadian innovation with partners across Canada. The content has since been migrated to Ingenium’s Channel, a digital hub featuring curated content related to science, technology and innovation.

Share
Aug 26, 2016
Categories
Food
Categories
Agriculture
Business & Economics
Engineering & Technology
Media
Article
Profile picture for user Bulkley Valley Museum
By: Bulkley Valley Museum
Joseph Coyle at age 23
Joseph Coyle at age 23.

One of the Bulkley Valley’s most noteworthy former residents was a resourceful pioneer, newspaper editor and inventor: Joseph Leopold Coyle. Joseph Coyle was born in Ontario in 1871 and began his career as a journalist apprentice. He moved first to New Jersey and then to Alaska before eventually settling in British Columbia’s Bulkley Valley in 1906. Coyle established several newspapers, including the Omineca Herald, the Bulkley Pioneer, and the Interior News. Founded in 1910, the Interior News became the mainstay paper of Smithers and the Bulkley Valley, and still printed to this day.

Outside of the Bulkley Valley, Coyle is best known for his invention of the Coyle Saftey Egg Carton, the predecessor to the modern egg carton that we all know and use today. After witnessing a frustrated hotelier berate a delivery man for supplying him with broken eggs, Coyle realized that there must be a better way to transport eggs than a simple basket. He developed a carrier with individual cushioned slots; Coyle first created this product by hand and later constructed a machine to keep up with the demand for his invention as his creation went on to be mass-produced in North and South America, Europe, and Britain. To further manufacture and market his invention Coyle left the Bulkley Valley in 19191, travelling to Vancouver, San Francisco, Chicago, London Ontario, and New Westminster BC, setting up factories as he went.

By the time Coyle died in 1972 at the age of 100, hundreds of millions of his cartons had been produced. Unfortunately, Coyle was unable to keep up with the lawyers and the businessman who made millions of dollars off his product. According to his daughter, Ellen Myton, Coyle never made much money from the Coyle Carton; the family was able to live comfortably but not affluently. Coyle’s list of inventions also include a pocket cigar cutter and a vehicle anti-theft device. His egg carton machine is now part of the collection at the Royal BC Museum in Victoria.

Joseph Coyle in his Los Angeles factory

Joseph Coyle in his Los Angeles factory.

Joseph Coyle with his wife and daughter Ellen

Joseph Coyle with his wife and daughter Ellen.

Joseph Coyle on his hundredth birthday

Joseph Coyle on his hundredth birthday

Tags
Innovation Storybook
Author(s)
Profile picture for user Bulkley Valley Museum
Bulkley Valley Museum
Follow

The Bulkley Valley Museum collects, preserves and presents items of historical and cultural significance from Smithers and the Bulkley Valley, with the purpose of making our local history exciting and engaging.

The Bulkley Valley Museum is located in the traditional territory of the Witsuwit’en.

https://bvmuseum.org/

Related Stories

Spliced image, from left to right: a seismometer on mars, a heap of red rhubarb stalks with green leaves, a copper roof of the Canaian Parliament

3 Things you should know about marsquakes, the value of urine, and the chemistry of rhubarb

A smiling Mrs. Élie Fortin of Montmagny, Québec, accepting the bicycle won by her daughter, Michèle Fortin, in a contest organised by Dulac Potato Chips Incorporated of Sainte-Marie, Québec. Anon., “–.” Le Peuple, 10 May 1963, 10.

A great lady who never let go of the potato: Anne Marie Harmonia Hallé and the Dulac potato chips saga

A dirty glass slide of a stromatolite with a dirty cotton swab at the bottom; a close-up on a bee with a green head and thorax on a yellow flower; a false colour 3D view of the surface of Venus showing volcanoes and lava flowing towards the foreground.

3 Things you should know about how native bees are important pollinators, how saliva is used to clean artifacts, and active volcanism on Venus

Ahh, ice cream, the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems. I do wonder if this young boy knew he was actually eating mellorine. Anon., “De la crème glacée synthétique.” Photo-Journal, 16 April 1953, 3.

Do they or do they not buy some? Only their grocer knows for sure: A brief look at a lower-cost imitation of ice cream sometimes known as mellorine

A typical T.K. Bellis Turtle Company Limited advertisement. Anon., “T.K. Bellis Turtle Company Limited.” The Graphic, 8 January 1898, 64.

Ransacking nature and building up a fortune by satisfying the cravings of a selfish elite; Or, How an industry dominated by T.K. Bellis Turtle Company Limited of London, England, nearly obliterated a true marvel of the sea, Part 2

Thomas Kerrison Bellis, in other words the Turtle King. Anon., “Good Stories for All – Turtle King of England is a Powerful Ruler.” The Boston Daily Globe, 17 March 1898. 8.

Ransacking nature and building up a fortune by satisfying the cravings of a selfish elite; Or, How an industry dominated by T.K. Bellis Turtle Company Limited of London, England, nearly obliterated a true marvel of the sea, Part 1

A large impact crater viewed from the rim, a woodern spoon full of small yellow grains, a close up of a forearm being tattooed.

3 things you should know about the untapped potential of millet, the permanence of tattoos, and asteroid airbursts

A promoter of Sure Food, the food chemist James Pearson (right), at the facility of Wentworth Canning Company Limited of Hamilton, Ontario. Anon., “La viande, synthétique, produit canadien, pourrait sauver de la famine les peuples affamés d’Europe.” Photo-Journal, 5 February 1948, 3.

“It smells like meat. It even looks like meat.” The long forgotten tale of a synthetic meat / meat substitute / meat analogue / meat alternative / imitation meat sometimes called Sure Food

Three images side by side: a toilet bowl expelling a cloud of droplets, a gloved hand holding a test tube containing a small plant, and an infrared view of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io showing spots of volcanic activity covering the moon.

3 things you should know about flushing the toilet, artificial photosynthesis, and volcanic activity on Jupiter's moon

A typical wild and free bullfrog. John J. Brice, editor, A Manual of Fish-Culture: Based on the Methods of the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, with Chapters on the Cultivation of Oysters and Frogs (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1897), 258.

“Is a frog game or fish? There is the rub.” A brief look at the history of ranaculture in Canada and Québec, Part 4

A typical advertisement of Giant Frog & Sea Food Limited of Montréal, Québec. Anon., “Giant Frog & Sea Food Limited. La Patrie, 18 October 1952, 53.

“Is a frog game or fish? There is the rub.” A brief look at the history of ranaculture in Canada and Québec, Part 3

Three of the innumerable American bullfrogs found on the frog farm of Harold Lee, Casitas Springs, California. Anon., “Nature – Frog Farm.” Pix, 6 January 1951, 30.

“Is a frog game or fish? There is the rub.” A brief look at the history of ranaculture in Canada and Québec, Part 2

Footer

About The Channel

The Channel

Contact Us

Ingenium
P.O. Box 9724, Station T
Ottawa ON K1G 5A3
Canada

613-991-3044
1-866-442-4416
contact@IngeniumCanada.org
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Channel

    • Channel Home
    • About the Channel
    • Content Partners
  • Visit

    • Online Resources for Science at Home
    • Canada Agriculture and Food Museum
    • Canada Aviation and Space Museum
    • Canada Science and Technology Museum
    • Ingenium Centre
  • Ingenium

    • Ingenium Home
    • About Ingenium
    • The Foundation
  • For Media

    • Newsroom
    • Awards

Connect with us

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest Ingenium news straight to your inbox!

Sign Up

Legal Bits

Ingenium Privacy Statement

© 2023 Ingenium

Symbol of the Government of Canada
  • Browse
    • Categories
    • Media Types
    • Boards
    • Featured Stories
  • About
    • About The Channel
    • Content Partners