Dairies prospered south of the river
Dairies prospered south of the river
Written by Karen R. Thompson Thursday, 08 May 2008
Austin — Most Austinites in the late 1800s enjoyed home delivery by a milkman with a horse-drawn wagon.He would ladle raw milk from a large container into the customer’s jug. Pastures south of the Colorado River provided ideal grazing for cows, which meant that many of Austin’s dairies and creameries were in South Austin.
In 1898, the J. Amos Bryant Creamery was established and soon had a small milk route with delivery in a truck. Milk was “raw,” meaning it was not processed in any way.
By 1910, Dave M. Bryant was working at a dairy owned by H. Emzy West. Bryant soon established his own business with a herd of Jersey cows. The Bryant Creamery Company furnished dairy products for more than half a century. When it closed in the early 1950s, although the location was adjacent to the new William B. Travis High School on Oltorf Street, it was no longer considered “way out in the country.”
Q. C. Boatman’s dairy was located on South First Street, and in 1936 claimed to be “one of the oldest dairies of this city serving the people continuously for over 25 years.”
In a 1970s interview, Boatman said he produced and distributed the very best milk possible through proper feeding and handling of the cows. His business had modern equipment and invited visitors to “drive in and visit with us—we are just off the San Antonio Highway,” the road now known as South Congress Avenue.
Newer milk producing systems became available, and in 1937, Harry L. Peterson started Hillcrest Farms, the first milk producer to sell pasteurized milk instead of raw milk. Peterson had a master’s in dairy husbandry from Texas A&M College. In the beginning, Peterson had two employees, one truck, 22 cows and production brought 50 quarts of milk a day. All the milk was poured into quart-size glass bottles for home delivery.
When Hillcrest Farms opened, the Austin population had reached around 60,000. The business was all home delivery except for the milk sold to the Driskill Hotel and Harry Akin’s Night Hawk Restaurant on South Congress Avenue. The original dairy herd was registered Jersey cows, but in 1947 they were replaced with Golden Guernsey cattle.
By the end of World War II, Austin had three dairies other than Hillcrest Farms, including J. C. Bryant Creamery Company, Superior Dairies and Meyers Creamery. It was about that time that J. C. Bryant died and his dairy was sold. The Bryant Creamery plant manager, Fred Barge Jr., joined Peterson as a business partner.
Hillcrest Farms grew to where it needed more milk than the herd could produce, so the business started buying from small milk producers. Then in 1955, it was the first dairy operation in Texas to equip a truck with a “milk tank” instead of cans. A second milk tank truck was added in 1956. Two or three years later, officials authorized all milk processors in Texas to use this system.
The Hillcrest Farms motto was “Stay where you are, we’ll bring it to you.” At its peak in about 1969, it had more than 14,000 home customers, employed milkmen to deliver in 35 refrigerated trucks and purchased milk from 25 farmers.
It was near this same time that Hillcrest Farms was sold to a corporation called Pure Milk and home delivery stopped. Customers wanted an expanded variety of milk products and dairies were now expected to bottle milk in new plastic or paper containers. The glass bottle of raw milk became a thing of the past.
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