FAIRFIELD'S NEW INDUSTRY (1903)
Creamery a Benefit to All Classes – Improved Trade
-- From the Laurel Review, published in the Indiana Historical Society archives
Fairfield is proud, and well may be, of her new industry – a creamery. It is a branch of a larger one at Liberty and is the joint property of a group of farmers who began, a few years ago, in a small way and soon found the business profitable. The branch at Fairfield has not yet been established a month, but farmers are eagerly supplying it with milk, and it is said, many more cows will be maintained hereafter.
The system in vogue is for the farmers to deliver their milk each morning and be credited with whatever butter fat the “run” contains after being put through a separator. When the new milk is unloaded, a tiny dipper with an upright handle is dipped into the can and a sample of the milk is put in a glass jar labeled with the farmer's name.
At stated periods the contents of the jars are tested and the percentage of butter fat arrived at. It is said that thus far farmers are getting about equal to 22 cents for their milk product, where before they received from 12 to 17 cents in the form of home-made butter and the trouble of churning, working, etc., is dispensed with.
It should be stated that about 80 per cent of the milk, after being run through the separator, is returned to the farmer for use in feeding, etc.
And no one is better pleased with the new arrangement than are the Fairfield local merchants. With the natural trade rivalry that exists and the desire to pay the best price possible for produce, money has been lost, not made, by them in handling butter, at least so say four of the five in business there.
Now, every morning the farmers or some of their family come to town in great numbers and the effect on trade is already perceptible. The public square of half a block in the heart of the village has been fenced in with a rack for tying horses on all four of its sides, and for a time each morning this whole space is filled.
***
By spring 1903, the creamery was well-established in Fairfield, according to the newspapers of the day.
More about the creamery as a cooperative enterprise. The concept was gaining traction as early as the late 1800s but required enough cows, so to speak, to make the business practical. A large creamery sprang up in Brookville in 1906, fueled by Cincinnati investment.
The creamery also produced ice, which had significant practical applications for more than just the dairy industry. I believe the creamery was in a spot between the Town Hall and the Mercantile building on Main Street.
Stories said the building had been owned by Aaron Miller. A man named Bert (Burt) Clark was considered a spokesman, and he may have been the principal owner or manager of the operation, both in Fairfield and Liberty.
Henry McMahon was also listed as a principal spokesman when a creamery operation was being planned in Brookville. Joseph McMahon was named in a separate story for having produced a robust amount of milk from 11 cows for the operation. McMahons lived in the Jersey area north of Fairfield. Elwood and C.R. Dare were named in other stories as participating farmers.
The Brookville operations were run by the French Brothers, who managed a much larger operation. One assumes there was some commercial interaction with the Fairfield-Liberty business. One of the French stations was destroyed by fire in 1911.
I don't know when the creameries stopped being profitable.
***
Addendum: Fencing in the town square -- an image that isn't easy to forget. Watch where you walk!
No comments:
Post a Comment