Millerstown Dairies

Millerstown Dairies. Perry County Bicentennial. , By the early 20th century, local farms began to offer dairy products that gradually replaced the need for a family cow. Fertile Pfoutz and Raccoon valleys provided ideal grazing conditions. Enterprising farmers stored winter ice and utilized cool springs for preservation of milk. Horse-drawn wagons, and later motorized transportation, delivered milk to customers' front doors, a service now lost to memory., Hall's. Around 1905, William J. Hall was the first to deliver milk in Millerstown, using a horse-drawn buggy and a metal milk can and metal ladle. A few years later, the Swab Wagon Company of Elizabethville, PA built him a special milk delivery wagon. In 1939, son John Kretzing Hall and grandsons, John Allen, William, and James Hall bought out the Echo Glen delivery route. Working from their Pleasant Home Farm, they became the first in the area to offer pasteurized and homogenized milk, and in 1947, they began ice cream production. Milk processing ended in 1966, but family-made Hall's Ice Cream has continued to the present day., Black's. Brothers Jonathan and Samuel Black founded Black's Dairy in 1916 in Raccoon Valley. Until 1935, a charcoal-gray horse, named "Whiteface" pulled a sleigh or wagon to deliver bottles of chocolate, strawberry, or regular milk and cream priced at 5, 10, or 25 cents per half pint, pint, or quart. In 1935, a truck took over and, in 1945, a van, until the dairy closed in 1950., Rumberger's. Charles and Eleanor Rumberger purchased a Raccoon Valley farm in 1915. Soon they started Rumberger's Dairy, milking their 25 cows by hand. Water troughs in the milk house kept the milk cans cool. Twice a week, children Anna, Thomas and Jonathan delivered milk to customers in Millerstown by horse-drawn buggy, Rumberger's Dairy ceased operation in the late 1940's, after the cows contracted tuberculosis., Beaver's. In 1926, James F. Beaver started a dairy known as Beaver's Dairy in Pfoutz Valley. Because the milk was raw, it was transported daily by automobile to Millerstown, Newport, and Thompsontown. In 1928, a disastrous fire destroyed the barn that housed the dairy, so Beaver transferred ownership of the dairy to Nevin S. Bardell, Sr., his neighbor and future father-in-law., Echo Glen. After Nevin Bardell purchased the assets of Beaver's Dairy in 1928, he changed its name to Echo Glen Dairy. The milk and cream were still bottled raw and delivered daily. Normally the hogs drank the skimmed milk, except during the Depression when neighbors lined up to get free skimmed milk. The dairy also made and sold butter and chocolate milk. Two specially designed milk trucks delivered the products to homes, hotels, restaurants, and stores. Milk originally sold for 10 cents a quart but was free of charge on Christmas day! Promotional items included calendars, hand fans, and silverware. Nevin sold the dairy equipment and delivery route to John K. Hall and Sons in October in 1939, ending an 11-year turn., Rumaugh's. James Orville and Elizabeth Beaver Rumbaugh delivered milk in Pfoutz Valley from the 1920s through the early 1930s. The process began with washing the bottles, two bottles at a time , on rotating brushes powered by a small gasoline motor. They milked some cows by hand, and others with milkers powered by a battery generator. Milk then had to be strained into cans and set in a chest with ice blocks which were harvested from the creek and preserved in sawdust in an ice house. After cooling, milk was bottled by hand and carefully capped. The next morning, the Rumbaughs transported the milk in a "touring car" with side curtains and set the bottles on each doorstep. The customer would have left empties on the porch or put a note in a bottle with their order. Payment would also have been left in a bottle: 3 cents per ½ pint, 5 cents per pint, and 10 cents for a quart. Cream was one dollar per quart., The consolidation of the dairy business continued throughout the middle of the 20th century, occurring in tandem with the arrival of the major grocery chains. The local, family-owned and operated dairy disappeared, just as did the family-owned small grocery store..