Later Life
The future of the Coyle carton
While the Coyle carton revolutionized egg transport and made several millionaires, Joseph himself was not among them. Having sold part of the interest on his first patent to promotor Leon Benoit, who had opened the first Coyle carton factory in Chicago in the 1920s, Joseph found himself unable to fully profit from his creation. His family was always comfortable, but never wealthy. Daughter Ellen Myton later remarked, “As is often the case with inventors, he was no match for the sharp practices of big business and their even sharper lawyers.”
Nonetheless, Coyle was constantly updating his original carton in order to receive new patents. He was especially active in this regard in the late 1930s and early 40s: the Canadian Patents Database contains Coyle patents from 1937, 1940, 1941 (including a new assembly machine), 1942, and 1943. Some of these redesigned cartons were manufactured by Somerville Industries and the Collett-Sproule Co. in Ontario, where Coyle lived for a time (see advertisements at right). His creativity was not limited to egg cartons; earlier on, he had invented a cash till that could sort and dispense coins individually, a car lock that prevented a steering wheel from turning until it was removed, and a match box with a built-in cigar trimmer.
As technology advanced throughout the 20th century, many other inventors and companies sought to improve upon the egg carton. For instance, in 1931, Francis Sherman of Palmer, Massachusetts patented the first carton made of pressed paper pulp. The most commonly-used version today, with dimpled, cup-like bottoms, was created by H.G. Bennett in 1952. Foam egg cartons first appeared in 1967, the work of Jon Huntsman and Dow Chemical. Plastic egg cartons also became highly popular in the 1960s.
All this presented a problem for the Coyle carton, which was slowly becoming obsolete. As it would be enormously expensive to convert all his pre-existing machinery to these new processes, Coyle carried on much as he always had. He and his son Patrick continued in this business for several decades, with Joseph doggedly working the machines by hand until his early 90s.
"A happy, relaxed life..."
Joseph’s daughter Ellen became a schoolteacher in Washington state and married Hollywood screenwriter Fred Myton. She herself wrote two western films - Overland Riders and Ghost of Hidden Valley - both of which were released in 1946, the same year her parents moved to New Westminster. Joseph, Ellen, and Patrick returned to Smithers for a visit in 1962, reconnecting with many residents that the Coyles had known during their years in town. Joseph passed through again in 1969 on the way back from a solo trip to Juneau, Alaska. He was 98 years old, and this was the last time he would see the Bulkley Valley.
Joseph Coyle died in New Westminster on April 18th 1972, a few weeks short of his 101st birthday. He was predeceased by his wife Winnifred in 1964. Joseph was eulogized in the very newspaper he had founded, which remarked: "Another link with the early days of the Bulkley Valley was broken." The Coyle safety carton died with its inventor, replaced by today’s moulded and plastic egg cartons, but his other creation - the Interior News - lives on.
Ellen Coyle Myton visited Smithers in April 1987 for the 80th anniversary of the Interior News (see photograph below). At this time she recorded two interviews about her father’s life, one with BVLD Radio and one with the Bulkley Valley Museum (you can listen to both on our Online Collections). Ellen also corresponded with past BVM curators and donated photographs and artifacts, including her father's typewriter, to our collection. She died in 1999 at the age of 87.
Ellen always maintained that her father enjoyed a simple life and was never bitter towards those who had financially profited off his invention. “I never heard him speak an unkind word about anyone,” she was quoted in the Interior News in 1982. "Perhaps it was this quality that contributed to his longevity.”
