Hansen Dairy

Hansen Dairy. . In 1871 the Brigham City Mercantile and Manufacturing Association built a dairy near this location in Cottonwood Hollow. The large 2 1/2 story structure was built from locally quarried stone and represented the Dairy Department of the religious cooperative established by Mormon Apostle Lorenzo Snow. , , The dairy was run by Christian and Elizabeth Hansen, who had immigrated from Denmark in 1854. Elizabeth was widely acknowledged as an expert cheese maker and had responsibility for all of the products created here. , , Members of the cooperative were invited to loan cows to the dairy in early spring. Every fall, the cows, along with a share of the cheese and butter their milk had produced, were returned to them. , , At top production nearly 600 cows were milked by hand twice daily by thirty milkmaids, and 50,000 pounds of cheese were produced annually. The butter and cheese were of very high quality and Elizabeth's cheeses were awarded two gold medals at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. , , A devastating fire at the Co-op's woolen factory in 1879 followed by an onerous federal tax assessment in 1879, sent the cooperative into receivership. Christian and Elizabeth Hansen purchased the dairy from the cooperative and ran it successfully until 1893. , , One of their sons. Willard Snow Hansen, continued the dairy operations for a time before transitioning into sheep ranching. Their other son, Lorenzo Hansen founded the Cache Valley Condensed Milk Company, which for decades produced evaporated milk, cream cheese, and butter at six creameries in Utah and Idaho.