Showing posts with label dairy industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dairy industry. Show all posts

Thursday, November 7, 2024

Deep River Then and Now: International Dairy Co.

1936 and 2024:
2024-11-07. 1936-dairy
2024-11-07. Dairy building 2024 01
2024-11-07. 1936-dairy-truck-1
2024-11-07. Dairy building 2024 02
(Click on images to enlarge)
Historical images courtesy of R.F.
2024 images from Google street view.


Per a 1936 history of Union Township written by Wheeler High School students and teachers:
The Pure Milk station was built in the fall of 1925 by the Midwest Dairyman's Company, but there have been several improvements made in the equipment since then. There have been no decreases in the shipment of milk; rather it has increased gradually from 10,000 pounds daily in 1925 to 36,000 daily in 1936. It is owned by the International Dairy Company and all members that belong are Pure Milk members.[1]
I must take their word for the construction date, since I have not been able to find any relevant information in the newspapers I have access to. Indeed, I read through the whole of 1925's Hobart Gazette without finding any mention of what must have been a big event in the village of Deep River. On the other hand, the Porter County Assessor's records have 1950 as the build date. I think that may be a mistake, unless the dairy building burned to the ground and an identical version was built anew in 1950. Possibly that was the date the two back sections were added on; they were not original, as we can see in the second 1936 photo, and as the relevant 1939 aerial photo confirms.

The earliest newspaper article I have found about the dairy dates to January 1931:

2024-11-07. 1931-01-24 Lake County Times (Hammond, Inc.), Blast Rocks Dairy Plant
(Click on image to enlarge)
Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 24 Jan. 1931.


Pretty exciting event, but I don’t think it made the Gazette.

This article, from later the same year, does establish that the dairy was operating at least as early as January 1930:

2024-11-07. 1931-04-13 Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), p. 11
(Click on image to enlarge)
Lake County Times (Hammond, Ind.), 13 Apr. 1931.



This photo, also from 1936, was taken in an unknown location.

2024-11-07. 1936-dairy-truck-2-vina-serafinski
(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of R.F.


We don't know who the smiling man was, either — presumably a truck driver for dairy. This photo has the name "Vina Serafinski" in its file name, but I haven't been able to identify such a person, nor anything about the name Serafinski that would help I.D. this location.

From this photo, dated 1938, I gather that someone was really proud of the dairy building and its pretty landscaping:

2024-11-07. 1938-dairy
(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of R.F.


And lastly, a few random articles naming several employees of the International Dairy Co. over the years:

2024-11-07. 1930-12-12, Vidette-Messenger (Valpo, Ind.), p. 5
(Click on images to enlarge)
Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 12 Dec. 1930.


2024-11-07. 1941-01-27 Vidette-Messenger (Valpo, Inc.), p. 2
Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 27 Jan. 1941.

2024-11-07. 1967-02-21 Vidette-Messenger (Valpo, Ind.), p. 3
Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.), 21 Feb. 1967.


_______________
[1] From the "Industrial Development" section of WHEELER HIGH'S WINNING HISTORY OF UNION TOWNSHIP As Compiled By History Class and Instructors For The Vidette-Messenger, printed in the Porter County Centennial, 1836-1936, Special Edition, 18 Aug. 1936, as transcribed at https://www.inportercounty.org/Data/PorterCountyCentennial/Sec3-4-6_UnionTwpHistory.html.

Friday, January 18, 2019

Hot Weather

The last two weeks of June 1923 were so hot that the strawberry crop withered and the M.E. church held its services in the basement. The Gem Theatre in Hobart enticed its patrons with "12 big fans" to cool them off. (The movies had not yet become the talkies so there was no spoken dialogue to be drowned out by those fans.) When sundown brought a little relief, you could go dancing at the pavilion just north of the old Liverpool schoolhouse, on the northeast corner of the Old Ridge Road-Liverpool Road intersection. The brave young people playing tennis on Stommel's lot did so early in the morning or late in the afternoon, I hope.

Nothing much was planned in Hobart for Independence Day, but on its eve Camp 133 promised a big fireworks display. If you didn't care for fireworks, you could go dance at the old Deepriver schoolhouse to music "with real pep" played by Perry's Big Six (I have no idea).

2019-01-18. Lee, Gazette, 6-29-1923
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette, June 29, 1923.


Still, work had to go on. Planning for the future Roosevelt Gym building was going forward, and our favorite plumbers, Lee & Rhodes, as the only bidders for the plumbing work, were awarded the contract.

Some unpleasant business involving tuberculosis-testing of cattle occurred on "the big farm of Roper Bros." (and even more unpleasant business later at a Chicago slaughterhouse). I don't know where that farm was. I can't find any land owned by a Roper in Union Township on the Lincoln Highway in the 1921 or 1928 plat maps.

Friday, April 20, 2018

Fast Time

Our friend Fred Rossow lost nearly all his cows in April 1923, as the tuberculosis testing of local herds finished up.

2018-4-20. Fast Time
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette, April 20, 1923.


No one else lost as many in this round of testing, and most of the herds tested clean. "John Harnes" is a misprint for "John Harms."

There is so much material on this page! In the far-left column, Bess Hayward is selling off livestock and farming implements from her parents' estate.

In the next column, just below the cow-testing story, confusion arises from the inconsistent adoption of "fast time" — Daylight Saving Time. (And below that, yet another dance at the Niksches' Deep River Hall.)

In the right-hand column, we find an entertainment planned at the W.G. Haan School.

2018-4-20. brookdale farm synopsis
From Plays of the 19th and 20th Centuries, Volume 27 (1884)

And at the bottom of the column, some Severance-Yager socializing. From the 1920 Census, it would appear that George (Sr.) and Agnes Severance, who always rented the farms they operated, had moved from their previous home, a Ross Township farm west of Hobart,[1] to land in southeastern Hobart Township: their neighbors are Malones, Ensigns and Fasels.

♦    ♦    ♦

I was able to confirm the Harnes/Harms misprint above through the News version of the cow-testing story. That paper also carried a story about Ruby Fisher's marriage to a Hobart chiropractor named Alfred[2] C. Wickham, whom I never heard of before …

2018-4-20. Fisher wedding
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News, April 19, 1923



… or after, either — I can't find them in the 1930 Census.

_______________
[1] "Celebrate Silver Wedding," Hobart Gazette, July 20, 1917.
[2] Indiana Marriage Collection.

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Now, About All Those Other Guys

Mayor Sherman Henderson's instructions to Police Chief Fred Rose in early April 1923 testified that, in spite of all those recent acquittals, plenty of people in Hobart were selling and buying vice in the form of liquor and gambling.

2018-3-18. Punchboards etc.
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News, April 5, 1923.


I had to ask Professor Google what punch boards are. In his letter, His Honor sounds as if he were still mad about losing money on them.[1]

In the left-hand column, we find another type of eradication underway, as local cattle were getting tested for tuberculosis, and many failing.


_________________________________
[1] I'm kidding.

Thursday, January 25, 2018

"Old Fasel Homestead Destroyed by Fire"

2018-1-25. Fasel homestead burs
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News Mar. 23, 1923.


Once or twice, when we were driving along Tenth Street, Eldon Harms pointed out a two-story house on the south side of the road and told me, "That's the old Fasel homestead." Maybe that's the house that replaced the old Fasel homestead after it burned down in 1923? The County Assessor's records do not agree with that theory, but the County Assessor's records are not reliable.

In the right-hand column, we find James Chester working as an auctioneer.

Among the farmers who lost cows (in the article above the one marked) are some of our acquaintances, including Mike (aka Helmuth) Foreman of Ainsworth. We've also met Duffy DeFrance before. For the location of the "old DeFrance farm," we can go back to the 1870 Census and Duffy's parents, Charles and Catherine, living in Portage Township, Porter County; and the Portage Township plat map of 1876 shows them owning 120 acres in two parcels, one of which borders E. 37th Ave. not far east of where it is now crossed by the Prairie Duneland Trail, the old EJ&E line.

2018-1-25. DeFrance - Portage-1876
(Click on image to enlarge)
Image from http://www.inportercounty.org/Data/Maps/1876Plats/Portage-1876.jpg.


Thursday, April 20, 2017

She That Was Sophie Mankey

Thus far I haven't learned much about Julius Triebess and his family, but thanks to this little item from January 1923, I have learned that Sophie Triebess' maiden name was Mankey.

2017-4-20. Sophie Mankey Triebess
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette 12 Jan. 1923.


With that information, I can be pretty sure Julius and Sophie were married in Chicago on June 11, 1901 (Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index). According her Indiana Death Certificate, her parents were William and Dorothea* (Brockmiller) Mankey … but they are proving elusive in the census records.

Her brother, William Mankey, farmed the east side of Randolph Street south of the Grand Trunk tracks.


Reported at the bottom of that column, Dr. L.M. Friedrich had minor car crash somewhere south of the intersection of Randolph Street and E. 73rd Avenue, where the Ed Niksch place lay.

Over in the left-hand column is a (partial, maybe) listing of who was in the local dairy business in January 1923.

__________________

*In death certificates of other relatives, her name is given as Dorothy or Doris.

Friday, January 8, 2016

A Funeral and a Wedding

At 6:30 on the morning of June 21, 1922, Marie Halfman and Martin J. Powers were quietly married by Father Fred Koenig of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church at Turkey Creek. "The ceremony was quite private," reported the Gazette, "owing to the recent death of the bride's father, invitations for a big wedding having been cancelled."

In fact, William Halfman had been buried only the day before.

2016-1-8. Wm. Halfman obituary
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette 23 June 1922.


"[T]he farm where he was born 48 years ago" would probably be the Henry Halfman farm on the northeast corner of 61st Ave. and Broadway.

The widow's name was Clara, as was the eldest daughter's ("Mrs. A.J. Prott"). The rest of the children were still at home, and Marie, even as Mrs. Martin J. Powers, intended to remain at home for some time.

This young (about 22 years old) Martin J. Powers came from Gary. His father, who worked in a steel mill, and his mother were both the children of Irish immigrants. Reading a little into the census information, I think his two older brothers, William and John, worked in (or perhaps even owned) a plumbing shop, and Martin worked with them as a "plumber helper."

♦    ♦    ♦

Two columns over on the page above, we find the Chicago-area dairy farmers gamely hoping to reorganize their troubled cooperative marketing organization.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Powers-Halfman Nuptial." Hobart Gazette 23 June 1922.

Monday, June 29, 2015

South of Deepriver

The social news from the countryside in early March 1922.

2015-6-29. South of Deepriver social column
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News 9 Mar. 1922.


"Mrs. L.R. Huffman" would be Nellie, wife of Levi Randall Huffman, Jr.

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Superior Farms and Certified Milk

Jumping around in time as I do with the blog, I've long associated the Gruel farm with the name Superior Farms, but apparently it did not get that name until early in 1922:

2015-5-7. Gruel dairy
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette 27 Jan. 1922.


(And apparently Fred Scharbach objected to his mention in the previous week's letter from Canada.)


2015-5-7. Gruel dairy
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News 9 Feb. 1922.


2015-5-7. What is Certified Milk?
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette 24 Mar. 1922.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Good Times and Bad Among the Dairy Farmers

The Lake County Milk Producers' Association made big plans for a picnic in August 1921, enticing potential attendees with an offer of free milk as well as lots of fun.

2014-10-24. Free Milk
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News 11 Aug. 1921.


Meanwhile, Everett Newman wins another "away" race; and the mysterious Miss Kipp attends a family reunion of her sister's in-laws, accompanied as usual by Dr. Clara Faulkner, and unexpectedly (to me, at least) by Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Roper.

The picnic was a success — well attended and fun.

2014-10-24. Picnic
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News 25 Aug. 1921.



But this was gaiety in the face of hard times: just a week later, the Gazette was complaining that prices paid to milk producers were falling while retail prices remained almost the same — somebody was making money, but it wasn't the farmers, and now their marketing company's bad financial condition was about to force its Gary office to shut down.

2014-10-24. Milk
(Click on image to enlarge)
"Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 2 Sept. 1921.


(Also, Mabel's younger brother has a dislocated arm.)

Whatever happened at that meeting in the old town hall was not reported, but a week later the Gazette expressed hopes that the Milk Producers' Association proposition would "be saved from the rocks and placed on a sound working basis." That remains to be seen.


Additional Sources:
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 9 Sept. 1921.
♦ "Milk Producers of Lake County to Have Big Picnic." Hobart Gazette 12 Aug. 1921.
♦ "Notice to Milk Shippers." Hobart News 1 Sept. 1921.

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Two Bloody Days

Twice in two days — the last days of June 1921 — Dr. Jacob Ader and Dr. Dwight Mackey were called on to deal with the carnage of railroad accidents.

2014-9-10. Accident at Ainsworth crossing
(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart Gazette 1 July 1921.


The following week's Gazette reported that Louis Hershall had died the afternoon of the same day. His remains were shipped back to New York.


Another story on the page above concerned the farmer-owned milk-marketing company, which was "in a bad way financially"; but the story gave no clue as to the reason — whether poor management, or the effects of the depression the country had been going through since early 1920, or some other cause.

Monday, August 25, 2014

For Stud Service, Go to Mike O'Hearn's House

We haven't heard from our old friend Mike O'Hearn since 1918. Now we find him offering the stud services of a golden sorrel stallion — apparently at his own property, where you venture at your risk.

2014-8-25. O'Hearn
(Click on image to enlarge)
From the Hobart Gazette 24 June 1921.


In the next column, we get some details about the Gruel cow barn, which has been under construction for nearly a month.

Monday, April 21, 2014

Ainsworth Then and Now: Gruel Cow Barn/River Pointe Country Club

1920s(?) and 2014.

4-21-2014 Gruel Barn - JohnGruelEnvelope6
4-21-2014 Former site of Gruel barn
(Click on images to enlarge)
Top image courtesy of Diane Barnes.


It was the pride of Superior Farm — the barn that housed the cows that gave the milk that made the Gruel dairy famous.

We have a couple of pictures to show where it stood, including the bird's-eye shot that ran with a Chicago Daily Tribune, probably in 1938. But so few points of reference from that photo are still there today — really, the north-south road running past the barn is the main one remaining — that I can only give you a general idea of where it was: about where the picnic shelter is now, and south of it as well, since the barn was much bigger than that shelter.

As to the date of the historical image above, there's not much to go on, except that it was with a group of photos, two of which appear (from the cars in them) to date probably to the 1920s.

Here is another view, from the same collection and so, I'm guessing, from the same time period.

4-21-2014 Gruel Barn view 2 - JohnGruelEnvelope7
Image courtesy of Diane Barnes.

♦    ♦    ♦

My reading of the microfilm newspaper of 1921 has got to the point where the barn is being planned, so I'm expecting it to go up in 1921 or maybe 1922.

The Hobart Historical Society has a pamphlet that was printed up for the Gruel farm, describing the methods its dairy operations used to ensure the quality of their milk. The pamphlet is not dated, but from its appearance I would place it in the 1920s, or possibly the 1930s. It includes an exterior shot of the barn as well as some interior shots, at least one of which shows the interior of the barn.

4-21-2014 Gruel pamphlet1
(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.


4-21-2014 Gruel pamphlet2

4-21-2014 Gruel pamphlet3

Sunday, August 25, 2013

The New Haan School and
the Old Freeman Place

It would be easy enough to find the milk shippers' meeting on October 26, 1920.

Milk shippers' meeting

Just take the main road south out of Hobart and look for the name "W.G. Haan" on a schoolhouse, which you can hardly miss, as it towers over the open fields in all its bright red-brick newness.

But suppose you came across this little item in the News: "C.C. Shearer is planning to have a public sale on his farm known as the old Freeman place, on Nov. 1st." Not even a direction to point yourself. Good luck!

After some searching, I think I've found the place. And unfortunately it does not involve the Tecumseh Freeman who shows up renting land in Ross Township in 1910 and who had been listed in 1880, at the age of one year, as "Dumpsy" — that is priceless! But no; if we go back to 1918, we find this announcement in the Gazette: "C.C. Shearer has purchased the Freeman farm of 140 acres southeast of Deepriver in Porter county. He paid $60 per acre." And looking at a 1906 plat map, we find more than 160 acres under the name Freeman in southwest Union Township, Porter County, some of which may be the land in question, but if it's not Lake County and it's not Dumpsy Freeman, I'm not all that interested.


Sources:
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ "Additional Local News." Hobart Gazette 27 Sept. 1918.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 21 Oct. 1920.
♦ "Notice to Farmers." Hobart Gazette 22 Oct. 1920.
♦ "Notice." Hobart News 21 Oct. 1920.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Enforcing Solidarity

Harve Carey had been actively involved with the area milk shippers' union back when the new tuberculin-testing requirements threatened heavy costs to dairymen. Now it appears that he and his son, Lee, were being viewed as scabs by some.

The union's tri-state marketing arm, which began operating in February 1919, was intended to work for the benefit of the dairymen; however, not everyone was completely satisfied with its prices and terms. First Harve, and then Lee when he took over the family farm, made private arrangements with milk dealers, outside the union marketing cooperative, on terms that suited them better.

In September 1920 some union members confronted Lee about what they saw as his benefiting himself to the union's detriment.

Lee Carey v. Union
(Click on image to enlarge)
From the Hobart Gazette of Sept. 24, 1920.


I don't know the exactly meaning of that last comment (about Uncle Sam's view of boycotts) except that it's an example of how the Gazette seems to me to be getting more authoritarian in its views, especially since the World War.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Superior Farm Milk Bottle Cap (Random Old Image)

Superior Farm milk cap
(Click on image to enlarge)

OK, so the milk was pasteurized on Saturday. It would be nice if we knew which Saturday. This cap could date to the Gruel era, or the Carrozzo era, or perhaps a subsequent era, but I know nothing of the dairy's post-Carrozzo history.

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

In Milk We Trust

The dairy farmers surrounding Chicago had scarcely begun marketing their own products through the Milk Producers' Co-operating Marketing Co. when the federal government began investigating them. The Gazette reported in mid-April:
A thousand or more dealers, farmers and brokers will be summoned before a federal grand jury. It is alleged that the "milk trust" has complete control of milk and butter in the dairy district surrounding Chicago, in violation of the Sherman anti-trust law. Federal officers have had this matter under investigation for some time, and some farmers from this locality have been quizzed.
Secretaries of local branches of the Milk Producers' Association were ordered to bring their books and records to Chicago and turn them over to the grand jury. Locally, those summoned included George Lutz of Hobart, Robert Harper of Ainsworth, Walter Demmon of Merrillville, and L.F. Bay of Gary.

The details of the investigation were not reported in the Hobart papers, but evidently it resulted in the indictment of eight officials of the Milk Producers' Association. Although the case was ready to be heard in June 1919, it was postponed, apparently on the grounds that "keeping a jury locked up for the summer months" during what promised to be a "long drawn out" trial would be inhumane.

♦    ♦    ♦

In somewhat-related news,* the Lake County Commissioners announced in April that they had selected and purchased a site for the county's planned tuberculosis sanatorium — a spread of nearly 80 acres known as the J. Frank Meeker farm, in southern Ross Township about two miles north of Crown Point, and conveniently near a trolley line running to that town. The commissioners had $100,000 to work with, consisting of funds from the sale of bonds. The land cost about $13,000. The remainder would be used for buildings and fixtures.

Tuberculosis Sanatorium site
(Click on image to enlarge)
This excerpt from the 1926 Plat Book shows what I believe to be the land purchased in 1919 by the Board of Commissioner's for Lake County's tuberculosis sanatorium. This land is now the site of the Lake County Government Center.


_____________________
*As we know, there is a link between dairy cows and tuberculosis in humans.


Sources:
♦ "County Commissioners Purchase Sanitarium Site." Hobart News 24 Apr. 1919.
♦ "Government to Probe Milk Trust." Hobart Gazette 18 Apr. 1919.
♦ "Indiana Milk Shippers Summoned Before Federal Authorities." Hobart News 24 Apr. 1919.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 20 June 1919.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

I'm Quitting the Dairy Business!
I'm Serious, You Guys!

Thus far I've mentioned William Shults only for his effort to oust County Agent S.J. Craig. I don't know much about him. Sometime between 1900 and 1910, he and his wife, Vena, moved into Ross Township from Porter County. By then they had only a son, Alfred, having lost a little daughter, Dora, in early childhood.

(William also had two brothers, Charles and Fred. I've heard of Charles farming the Kramer land south of Hobart, and the Coffey land somewhere between Ainsworth and Merrillville. As for Fred, in 1910 he was 16 years old and living in William's household; two years later he married Miss Emily Schnabel, and the young couple started their life together in "the B.B. Bale residence near the Penna depot" before taking up farming again in Ross Township.)

For a while William and Vena rented the Clinton land northwest of Ainsworth and farmed it. In 1913 they bought for themselves the "Kruse farm," a large spread of land bordering on the Lincoln Highway.

Kruse farm 1908
(Click on image to enlarge)
This excerpt shows the land owned by William Kruse in 1908. Image courtesy of the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society.


In 1917, we find William elected to the "Trouble Committee" of the Ainsworth branch of the Lake County Milk Producers' Association. Two years later, he decided the dairy business was too much trouble.

Shults public sale

It sounds serious, doesn't it? But I've seen the 1920 census; I've seen William and family living on their own farm in Ross Township, William calling himself a dairy farmer, so I know this is only temporary.


Sources:
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1908 Plat Map.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Ainsworth Farmers Elect Officers." Hobart Gazette 26 Jan. 1917.
♦ "Kramer Barn Burns." Hobart Gazette 10 Sept. 1909.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 29 Oct. 1909; 30 Sept. 19101; 22 Nov. 1912.
♦ "Personal and Local Mention." Hobart News 25 Dec. 1913.
♦ "Public Sale Today." Hobart Gazette 28 Mar. 1919.
♦ "Ross Township." Hobart News 13 Jan. 1913.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Farm Bureau Drive

Nobody seems to have any good reason why farmers should not be organized. When men engaged in such work as chimney sweeps, bootblacks, window washers and flat janitors find reasons for organizing unions, and paying a large membership fee thereto, it would seem that the farmer, who is the backbone of the nation, oftentimes working with thousands of dollars' worth of capital, should join hands with his neighbor in an organization which has for its purpose nothing else than the furthering of this interests.
With these words, printed in both of Hobart's newspapers (and, no doubt, in newspapers all over Lake County), Virgil Place urged local farmers to join in the "Farm Bureau movement," the rising effort to create a farmers' union, which would culminate in the formation of the American Farm Bureau Federation later that year.

Virgil's immediate concern was to stir up interest among Lake County farmers. The "membership drive" was set for January 27 through February 1, 1919, with a structure reminiscent of the Liberty Loan and Red Cross drives of the war. Virgil was county chairman; each township in the county had its own leader (Alex Boyd in Ross Township, John Larson, Jr. in Hobart Township) commanding teams who would go out and talk to farmers, explaining the farm bureau concept and urging the farmers to join. The effectiveness of the county farm bureau depended upon membership.

♦    ♦    ♦

In another case of farmers looking after their own interests, the regional milk producers' association revived its pre-war plans for its own marketing company, which had been put on hold during the war. This cooperative marketing company was intended to replace the middlemen who now skimmed off some of the farmers' profits as the milk moved to the retailers who sold it to consumers.

On January 14 the milk producers' association called a meeting in Gary. With many dairy farmers from Lake and Porter Counties in attendance, the association's representatives explained how the marketing company was intended to work and asked that the farmers enter contracts with the company for all their milk by February 1, when the company was expected to begin operating.

From there, things moved quickly. Within ten days the Milk Producers' Co-operating Marketing Co.,* headquartered in Chicago, rented space for its local office in Room 242 in the Gary Building at 515 Broadway in Gary. By the end of the month it was in business.

But the 16,500 dairy farmers in Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana who belonged to the milk producers' association faced a drop in milk prices early in February. After an all-day conference with milk distributors, the association was able to avert a strike only by agreeing to a price of $3.50 per hundred pounds, instead of the $3.70 the milk producers had wanted. The association explained their compromise by pointing out that distributors already had a surplus of milk, and feed prices had gone down from their wartime highs.

_________________________
*Its name varies slightly from one report to another.


Sources:
♦ "Farmers' County Organization." Hobart Gazette 24 Jan. 1919.
♦ "Lake County Farm Bureau Membership Drive Next Week." Hobart News 23 Jan. 1919.
♦ "Marketing Co. Operating." Hobart Gazette 31 Jan. 1919.
♦ "Membership Drive Next Week." Hobart Gazette 24 Jan. 1919.
♦ "Milk Producers' Co-Operating and Marketing Company." Hobart News 30 Jan. 1919.
♦ "Milk Producers' Marketing Company Preparing for Business." Hobart News 16 Jan. 1919.
♦ "News From the County Agent." Hobart News 23 Jan. 1919.
♦ "To Start Operation Feb. 1st." Hobart Gazette 24 Jan. 1919.
♦ "Wholesale Price of Milk For February Takes a Drop." Hobart News 6 Feb. 1919.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Wheatlesser Still

In the spring of 1918 the wheat shortage was growing so acute that even the Spartan regimen advanced by the U.S. Food Administration was no longer sufficient. Indiana's federal food administrator, Dr. H.E. Barnard, sent a telegram to all county food administrators in the state asking them to promote a new wheatless way of life:
I am today asking the people of Indiana to go on a strictly wheatless diet. I ask them to refrain from the use of wheat flour and other wheat products until the next harvest. I ask them, because I know we have lived on corn, and can do so again. I know that our wheat situation is even more portentious [sic] than Hindenburg's army in Picardy. I know, as Hoover points out, that this is the most critical hour in our national history since Gettysburg. Indiana patriots do not need a command. They have risen to every patriotic request.
In compliance with Dr. Barnard's request to give this new policy the greatest possible publicity, Lake County's C.A. Westberg passed along the contents of the telegram to newspapers. Both Hobart papers reprinted it.

♦    ♦    ♦

The scarcity and high price of cattle feed and the narrow margin of profit on the sale of milk were causing local dairy farmers to cull their herds; they simply could not afford to feed dairy cows that did not produce a good volume of milk. Poor producers were sold for meat. A few farmers gave up on the dairy business and sold their entire herds.

The effect was an overall reduction in the amount of milk produced. But the population of Chicago was as thirsty for milk as ever. The changing relation of supply and demand led one Valparaiso milk producers' association official to say that "any farmer who admits a Chicago inspector to his barns now is a 'sucker.'" According to this unnamed official, dealers in Chicago would take any kind of milk they could get, and no one was in any position to enforce strict sanitary standards. Fastidiousness was a luxury of peacetime.


6-19-2011 Cows Will Win the War
(Click on image to enlarge)
"Cows will win the war," according to this "One-Minute Food Talk" from the Hobart Gazette of August 9, 1918.



Sources:
♦ "'Cut Out' Use of Wheat Flour Is Dr. Barnard's Appeal." Hobart News 4 Apr. 1918.
♦ "Dairymen Weeding Out Poorer Milkers From Their Herds." Hobart News 14 Mar. 1918.
♦ "Use No Wheat." Hobart Gazette 5 Apr. 1918.