Old Missoula

Missoula Dairies by Steve Smith

Can you recall when we had 22 dairies?

A reader, Elmer, says the trouble with this column is that it does not contain enough local history.

Elmer, get your coffee, have a seat and find out how Missoula-area residents go their milk, butter and cheese several decades ago.

For the information, thank Missoula’s John T. Campbell, raconteur-historian-sports fan, and Russ Kinney, a retired postal worker whose parents came to Orchard Homes in the spring of 1928 and bought the Idyll-Ease Dairy from Fred and Anna Reid.

Campbell and Kinney are long-time friends. Campbell’s family bought a gallon of milk daily from Kinney’s family, and through that relationship Campbell and Kinney became acquainted. Over the years – when they met on the street or in the post office – they would rehash earlier days.

Campbell once asked Kinney if Kinney would gather some information about early Missoula-area dairies. Kinney – working with his 91-year-old mother, Mattie – did so, and what follows is the result.

In a letter Kinney wrote to Campbell, Kinney said 22 dairies served Missoula when his mother and dad bought the Idyll-Ease in 1928*. Those dairies, Kinney said, delivered milk by car and truck; in the Daly Addition a couple of milk men used push carts.

Milk in the Depression days of the early ‘30s cost about a dime a quart – sometimes a nickel – but the Kinney’s price was 25 cents a gallon to purchasers of larger quantities, such as the Campbell family. The Kinneys had Guernsey-Jersey cows, which were noted for rich milk with a 5 percent butterfat content.

Of the many dairies delivering dairy products to Missoula-area residents in the late ‘20s and early ‘30s, Russ Kinney can name 22. Here they are, along with some other information – most of which is in Kinney’s words:

1 – Homedale Daily, run by the R. T. Richardson family in Orchard Homes. A very large dairy. They had seven children and most worked at the dairy. They (the children) were grown men at the time. Maurice (a son who died last fall) was in charge of their delivery.

2 – Meadowbrook Dairy Run by Charles Quast, up Grant Creek. A big dairy. The present Grantland subdivision is part of the ranch.

3 – Council Groves, run by the Sol family, west near Primrose. A large one.

4 – Community Creamery, started in 1930 by Fred Madsen Sr., his daughter, Dorothy, and daughter-in-law, Mrs. Merlin (Mae) Madsen. Madsen’s son, Merlin, entered the picture awhile later, and there followed other sons – Lester, Fred Jr., Roy, Clifford and Levon – and another daughter, Gale. Community was the largest distributor. Later became Meadow Gold Dairies, a division of Beatrice Foods.

5 – Consolidated Dairies, owned by Knut Greenquist, located on South Higgins Avenue near the present- day Hansen’s café.

6 – Garden City Dairies, started on West Front Street, a combination of many smaller dairies; came later when the health department required milk to be pasteurized.

7 – Hillendale Dairy, Cecil Thurston. A medium-sized dairy.

8 – Klapwyk’s Dairy, west Rattlesnake. Fairly large and operated by the Klapwyk family. Bert Klapwyk was in charge.

9 – Dussault Dairy, operated by the Dussault family near Council Groves Dairy at Primrose. A large dairy.

10 – Cold Springs Dairy, Weatherhill family, southwest of town, a medium-sized dairy.

11 – Dores’ Dairy, Harry Dore. Where the big barn is on 39^th Street. Medium size.

12 – Meadow Land Dairy, the Felton family. Quite large and located on Reserve, just south of Spurgin Road.

13 – Niemeyer’s Dairy, Bill Niemeyer. On Spurgin Road west of Tower Street. A small diary.

14 – Ray’s Dairy, Ed Ray. In the Rattlesnake. A large dairy.

15 – Herbig’s Dairy. Small and on Spurgin Road fairly near Reserve. My dad was delivering milk one day and as he passed their place their house was on fire. Nothing was saved.

16 – Otto Wornath and Gus Wornath. They delivered milk for a number of years at that time (early ‘30s) and later, but I don’t recall what their dairies may have been called. At some times they bought and sold milk and brought it in from the Bitterroot.

17 – Paul Smith, who brought milk from the Bitterroot in large quantities and bottled and sold it. The local dairymen resented the competition from outside the Missoula area.

18 – Idyll-Ease Dairy, C. W. Kinney. A small dairy in Orchard Homes on Seventh Street. Other Kinney sons involved were Clifton, William and Lewis.

19 – Kolendich Dairy, Grove Street, Orchard Homes, very small.

20 – Orchard Homes Dairy, Otto Benson on Third Street, small.

21 – Ernie Albers Dairy, Mullan Road, medium-sized.

22 – Taft’s Dairy, Seventh Street in Orchard Homes, small.

Merlin Madsen added to the list the Golden Glo Dairy, situated on Pattee Street between East Main Street and Broadway. Proprietor was Nels Solander. Madsen also said Missoula had 53 dairies in the early ‘30s.

What was it like to be a dairy operator in Missoula a half century ago? Interesting, to say the least.

For instance, when Russ Kinney’s dad bought his dairy in 1928, he discovered a customer on East Railroad Street who was not paying his milk bill. After a few months, Mr. Kinney went to see the man. The man, saying that he did not pay for milk, explained that Mr. Kinney’s delivery man owed him money for moonshine whiskey the delivery man had been buying. Mr. Kinney said he had bought the dairy and did not use moonshine.

“You may have bought the dairy, but you didn’t buy me,” the irate customer replied.

With that he slammed the door, and the business relationship ended with a loss.

With so many dairies in town, competition was fierce. Some customers had no qualms about taking milk products from two or more dairies. One Missoula family, for instance, took a half-pint of whipping cream a day from the Kinney’s Idyll-Ease Dairy and a pint of milk from the Richardson’s Homedale Dairy.

“Sometimes five or more dairies would deliver in the same block,” Russ Kinney said. “Our delivery route was 22 miles, and we covered almost all parts of the then Missoula.”

The Kinneys’ milk route took them to the home of the Campbells, and also to the E. C. Mulroneys, the Ed Donlans, the J. R. Donehues [Donohues], the Casper and Lou Nybo families and a number of other prominent families.

“Mrs. Reid, before us, got them as customers by going from one to another and telling them that so-and-so buys from us for quality,” Russ Kinney said. “It often worked. There was a lot of competition for these families because they always paid their bills. Many others didn’t. . . “

In the late ‘20s and early ‘30s, the Missoula Health Department took a monthly milk sample from each dairy. The department tested the milk for butterfat content and for bacterial count per cubic centimeter. Then the dairy received a report.

“We were always relieved after they took the sample,” Russ Kinney said. “We took considerable pride in the good reports we usually got. Butterfat, 5.1 percent; bacteria, 7,300. One time something went wrong and the report said: Bacteria, 99,000; which is sour milk.”

Russ Kinney’s parents sold their dairy in 1934 to a man who combined it with his. Other sales and consolidations followed, and today’s Missoula-area dairy and dairy-products-distribution business is vastly different from 50 years ago.

Thank you, Russ Kinney, for the history lesson.

And thank you, John Campbell, for prodding Russ to put some of that history on paper.

And thank you, Elmer, for telling me that this column does not contain enough local history. I hope you are satisfied.

 

The above column appeared in The Missoulian on February 8, 1980.

 

Another Steve Smith column that dealt with the same thing appeared a few weeks later.

 

Who’s Who in Missoula dairy history, Part II

A reader, Elmer, said a couple months ago the trouble with this column is that it lacks local history.

Elmer’s critique – coupled with some information from Missoula residents, Russ Kinney and John T. Campbell – resulted in an off-the-cuff history of Missoula-area dairies.

Since then, several letters from residents and former residents have told me, in effect, “Pal, you and Kinney and Campbell got it all wrong. So-and-so didn’t have a farm at such-and-such a place; he lived at . . . “And, The such-and-suches didn’t buy their dairy in 1933; they bought it in 1936 . . . “

Such are the risks amateur historians run.

But amateur historians can launch discussions and get the memories of other people working. The Missoula dairy piece did that.

Because a topic is good for only so much mileage – and because the thrust of this column is not the good old days – I have avoided an ongoing account of where grandpa and grandma got their milk.

But today, I want to make an exception, and in doing so let me introduce Lois Hames**, a Lolo wife and mother who did considerable legwork and then wrote an interesting response to the Kinney-Campbell-Smith dairy history. She sent it to this newspaper’s editorial page as a letter, but since that page essentially is for opinion – not reminiscences – it wound up on my desk.

A little reminiscing never hurt anybody, and neither did a little straightening out of the facts. So, without further ado, h-e-e-e-r-e’s Lois! (Lois, see you in the finale.)

Lois writes . . .

“Dear editor: I read Steve Smith’s article about old-time dairies with great interest and enjoyment – but with disappointment, and some surprise, as well – at the omission of my father’s name from the list. He was Roy Dickerman, and he milked 25 to 30 cows on our small farm in Cold Springs, on the old Bitterroot Road.

“My brother, Buster, and sister, Margie Maclay, think Daddy started the business about 1921, originally to serve nearby Fort Missoula, and later enlarged it to include Missoula. Buster recalls riding along with Daddy on a horse-drawn sleigh as he delivered to the fort; and I can remember accompanying him up Pattee Canyon when he delivered to the troops at the rifle range in the summer. This was located in the approximate area that is now the picnic grounds.

“It may well be that our dad was the last – or one of the last – of the family dairymen to have delivered directly to a military post.

“Directly across the road from us was the Cold Springs Dairy & Ice Co. run by the Miller family, not the Weatherills. The Weatherills dairy – not the Dores’ – was on what is now 39^th Street at Garrett, where the big barn still stands. The Dores’ dairy was off what is now appropriately called Dore Lane; their buildings were about where Reserve Street Exxon is located.

“Bob Harrington, Florence, who lived on the Weatherill place when his father worked there in the early ‘30s tells me it was called the South Side Dairy.

“Ida Miller McPherson thinks her family’s was about the third dairy started in the Missoula area. The Quast’ was the first. And she recalls that her brother, Eddie, and a hired man walked to Missoula to solicit the first customers, about 1917 or ’18. They delivered with a wagon and horses until getting trucks – red ones, I remember, with their company name painted on them. It was a large dairy milking 35 to 40 cows – and they were in business about 25 years. Emil Miller still brought milk to me, in Missoula, about the end of World War II.

“They also served some of the city’s “elite” – the Spotswoods and Bonners, among them.

“The only one of Daddy’s customers that I remember was a Mrs. Breeding; I considered that very racy at the time . . .

“Also not far from us, in the area of the present Meadow Hills School, was Cecil Thurston’s Hill & Dale Dairy – as I recall the spelling. He once had delivered with a quaint, narrow, one-horse wagon with a roof, and a door and window on each side. The wagon was nicely painted and decorated with the name, shaped into a little “hill.” Later, the wagon sat flat on the ground, wheels off, and made a marvelous playhouse for Barbara Jean Thurston, my sister, Myra, and me.

“My husband, Lee, remembers when his family moved to Missoula from the Bitterroot, about 1932, that Lockridges ran a small dairy on the southwest corner of Higgins and North avenues and grazed their cow on what was mostly an open flat. The Indians still came to set up their tepees and dig the bitterroots. The Lockridge house was new then, and stands in the same location.

“I place the Herbigs a little south, at the end of Higgins Avenue on the old Higgins place; but perhaps I’m thinking of another time. Russ Kinney put them on Spurgin Road and mentioned a fire; so they may have relocated, or it could have been another branch of the family.

“Here, south of Lolo, during the ‘30s and well into the ‘40s, the Rocks ran the Mountain View Dairy and delivered all over, Mrs. Rock said. She still lives here, although the house had to be moved and the big barn torn down when right-of-way was purchased to widen Highway 93.

“On the north end of Lolo, Doyles operated the River View.

“Jack Houchins, a dairyman for many years, did business around Missoula, and also, I understand, used the Idyll-Ease name at one time. Then he moved to the Bitterroot, northeast of Stevensville.

“When my husband was going to high school, he had a part-time job at the Oxford, where Ernie Albers delivered with horses and a sled. The milk was in cans that were put into a cooler, and was ladled into glasses for customers at the counter.

“Just a little farther down Mullan Road, between Reserve Street and the railroad crossing, Henry Sol had a herd of Holsteins that he sold about 1946.

“Out in the valley past Dussaults and Sols, Marcures and Loiselles milked large herds for many years.

“And up Grant Creek, near the Quast dairy, Whites had a small dairy, as did the Dan Ryans. Dan told Lee how he had carried the milk in cans at one time, and poured it into the customer’s containers, set out for that purpose. Sometimes the Ryan kids delivered the milk on their way to school.

“East of town, near Turah, Flemings had a dairy business. The girls delivered, before one of them went to school. One morning, as they were crossing the railroad tracks between their place and the highway, they were hit by the train and killed.

“I believe Otto Benson, Jr., took over his father’s dairy farm on Third Street and moved it to Seventh Street. He and his wife, Ann, ran a fair-sized operation, and hung in there as long as anyone I can think of – perhaps until as few as a dozen years ago.

“As the article indicated, most of these enterprises were family-operated; everybody had a job to do. In our case (and typically), the older boys helped with the feeding, milking and related chores, as well as the haying in the summer. Mama and my older sisters bottled milk and washed and sterilized the bottles and equipment.

“Being a little younger, three of us lucked out and got off with lesser tasks. One, though, I truly hated, for some reason that I fail to understand now. That was herding the cows as they grazed after the evening milking. Doesn’t sound bad, does it? Once, when the mosquitoes were horrible, I sneaked into the house and set the clock ahead. My sister told on me, and you can imagine what I got for that.

“Auntie [Agnes Berry Lauber], who came to care for us when Mama died, made cottage cheese for awhile and put it in neat little white cartons with wire handles. Daddy took them along on his route, too, which would probably have been verboten, even in those days, if the Health Department had known about it.

“Reading Russ Kinney’s remarks about the monthly milk samples brought a recollection of the man whose job it was to collect and test them. He was Mr. Whistler, a dapper little fellow in a suit – complete with vest and derby hat – who drove a smart little Model A coupe. Sometimes, he would do part of the test on the spot, putting the milk in sample jam-size jars in a circular tray about the base of an infernal contraption that whirled them dizzily to get its answers.

“The report came promptly and included a miniature strainer disc complete with whatever had been filtered out of the sample. There was either elation or depression, depending on the results.

“Steve, John and Russ got the ball rolling – and I’ve added a few names to the list – but it’s still short of the 53 dairies (retired Missoula creameryman) Merlin Madsen says Missoula had. Merlin ought to know. To split a fine point, businesses such as Golden Glo and Consolidated did not milk cows, but, rather, bought milk and bottled it, or made it into ice cream, cheese and butter. Therefore they were not dairies, per se, and would more properly be called creameries.

“Anyway, now that the subject has come up, I’ve gotten very interested and eager to know more. So it would be fun to hear from anyone who has knowledge of the subject and might be able to add names to the list.

“Thank you, Russ, John and Elmer – and Steve. –

Lois Hames, Box 446, Lolo, Mont. 59847.”

Finale

Thank you, Lois. I did not have much going for me this week, and probably would have carried on some more about names of the world’s winds and stuff like that. Your letter saved the day for everybody – including the readers.

 

The above article appeared in The Missoulian on April 11, 1980.

 

Another letter from a reader appeared in Steve Smith’s column on March 21, 1980:

Memories

A review of early-day Missoula dairies offered here a few weeks ago brought an interesting letter from a Brawley, Calif., man.

One-time Missoula resident Dale Steck, whose sister Mrs. Louis Dufresne of Thompson Falls, sent him the column, wrote as follows:

“We were near neighbors of (early Missoula dairyman) Fred Reid, and one summer he ‘hired’ me to escort his dairy cows over to the military reservation and bring them home in late afternoon. The gate was over at the corner of Tower Street and Spurgin Road. (Spurgin Road was called 11^th Street then.) I was paid 10 cents a day, seven days a week. The 70 cents was all take-home pay, and looked large to a 10-year old.

“I later worked for the Niemeyers and the Tafts on their dairies.

“One winter I worked at a tiny dairy over on River Road. It was owned by Grover T. Harlin. Milking machines were scarce in those days. We would get up at six in the morning and extract the milk by a certain manual manipulation. That was great for keeping the hands warm, but little else.

“It was my job to deliver 70 quarts of milk before school time. I had to hustle on the run. One morning, carrying a quart in each hand, I tripped over a wire strung low around a newly planted parking strip. I took a neat dive out into the guy’s lawn. The caps came off both bottles and we had us a horizontal twin geyser. Not wanting to be late for school, I gathered up my younger-than-now bones and went along my way.”

I have heard of many ways to warm the hands, Mr. Steck, but milking cows was not one of them. Thanks for your letter.

 

*An article from The Missoulian on April 22, 1928 discussed the delivery of milk in Missoula:

 

Dairymen of Missoula Organize For Handling The City’s Supply

Missoula dairymen are adopting a system which is in force in other cities and which will simplify the delivery of the milk supply in Missoula.

Some of the leading dairymen of the Missoula district have organized the Consolidated Dairies, which has bought out the Crescent Milk company of 509 South Higgins avenue. Through the consolidated plant it is expected to reduce the delivery costs of the Missoula milk product.

At the present time there are 52 wagons and trucks delivering milk within the city of Missoula. Through the consolidation plans which have just been negotiated the dairymen expect to reduce their delivery costs by 25 per cent.

The plant will be maintained at the Crescent company’s address, 509 South Higgins avenue. The milk will be delivered from the consolidated plant as grade A milk, Guernsey milk and as pasteurized or raw milk.

Leading dairymen of the Missoula district have organized the new company. “We have gone through a hard winter, in which we have had to feed for a long time, and the delivery costs have worked a serious hardship upon the dairymen,” one of the milk dealers said yesterday. “The new company should be of material benefit to the dairymen through the consolidated delivery system.”

Besides the product of the Missoula dealers who are affiliated with the company, Guernsey milk from the Bitter Root Guernsey farm of Mark D. Fitzgerald will be delivered in Missoula through the new company.

A pasteurization plant which is to be put in will be a development which is popular in many cities of the United States.

An article from The Missoulian on September 4, 1918 mentions the following dairies:

Preston Dairy, Shields Dairy, Joe Landry Dairy, L. M. Wittrup Dairy, Mrs. Sophie Hoffman Dairy, C. H. Thurston Dairy, Jersey Dairy (R. Flannery), Linden Hill Dairy (C. E. Day), Cash Dairy (S. H. Creasy), Jensen Dairy, (C. J. Jensen).

 

A couple of early large producers mentioned in the Missoulian were F. M. Shoemaker at Arlee, and Dr. W. P. Mills (with Howard Holland) of Lolo at Bitterroot Jersey Farm.

 

** Lois Hames was my one of my dad’s little sisters. A very bright (and dynamic) lady.

Link to Quast dairy article in Missoulian – 11/14/1915 (p15)

https://www.newspapers.com/image/349023818/?terms=%22quast%22%2Brattlesnake