Cowboy Chronicles: We all scream for ice cream
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
Media Contact: Mack Burke | Associate Director of Media Relations | 405-744-5540 | editor@okstate.edu
Small dairy production started to expand in the Oklahoma and Indian territories at the turn of the 19th century.
Frank C. Burtis, a recently hired Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College faculty member, began teaching the first dairy classes during fall 1900 to address proper dairy product handling through the Animal Husbandry Department. Burtis purchased dairy processing apparatuses, including several cream separators, and set up a small creamery in the innovative three-story brick College Barn completed the year before. He would soon add churns and dairy testing equipment.
The little creamery at the barn became a popular location for college students and employees to gather and enjoy fresh dairy products, especially ice cream. Pasteurized whole milk and butter were available daily, but cheeses and ice cream would also be offered on special occasions.
The creamery soon outgrew the space allocated to it in the College Barn. In fall 1904, a Dairy Building with creamery facilities, offices and classrooms was completed west of the (Old) Central Building and north of the Chemistry Building. Milking continued at the milking stalls in the College Barn twice a day. Raw milk was then hauled 800 feet in large metal cans on a wagon pulled by Percheron draft horses along a dirt road on the north side of the Dairy Building for processing.
Burtis also purchased the first draft horses in 1900, starting with a Percheron mare named ‘Adelaide.’ The expanded creamery became a popular new community gathering spot for college students and Stillwater residents alike as they would purchase ice cream and other fresh dairy products.
Dairy production and processing quickly became increasingly popular in the two territories. The key to this rapidly expanding agricultural production was the availability of cream separators sweeping the nation and region by 1904. This little invention provided another source of income for territorial farmers. The separators were much more efficient at collecting the cream portion of milk and enabled farmers to sell their cream or butterfat several times a week to local creameries.
With just a few milk cows, a rural family could easily collect several hundred dollars per year in cream sales. Expertise in the proper handling of these dairy products was critical. The college hired additional instructors over the next few years. In 1907, a Dairy Husbandry Department was created with Roy C. Potts as its head. Potts was also in charge of milk processing at the creamery, an increasingly popular location for students, faculty, staff and local citizens searching for inexpensive dairy products.
The expanding dairy herd soon included Ayrshire, Jersey, Guernsey and Holstein-Friesian cattle. In 1910, a new Dairy Barn was completed on what would become known as Farm Road, a short distance north of the College Barn. The only diagonal road on the main campus connected the new barn to the Dairy Building less than one-half mile away.
Beginning in fall 1911, milk products processed at the creamery were provided to college students and staff dining at the cafeteria in the Women’s Building. For the first time, many students residing on campus in the new residence halls had access to fresh dairy products delivered to the kitchen daily. Surplus dairy goods such as butter, cream, pasteurized milk and ice cream were sold at the Dairy Building and in Stillwater.
The OAMC Creamery provided working opportunities for college students, who received hands-on instruction in milk processing and conversion into cheese, butter and ice cream. The training of student employees faced some difficulties during World War I, with fewer staff and faculty instructors on campus. Several inspections identified deficiencies that were quickly corrected. Other challenges included the loss of the College Barn in 1922 due to a fire and a similar fate met the Dairy Barn in 1924. Luckily, a new Dairy Barn had been completed in 1923 for the dairy herd when it was separated from the Agricultural Experiment Station’s managed cattle herds.
Payne County Milk Producers’ Cooperative signed a formal contract with the college on July 1, 1925, to operate the creamery under the A&M Creamery label. This official collaboration provided increased and dependable raw milk resources from the college herd and Payne County farmers. A few local farmers sold their raw milk to the college from the beginning of the century, with the first dairy course in 1900-01. The cooperative would operate the creamery with the help of college students and market and sell products on campus and in local communities.
The A&M brand produced ice cream, sherbets, cottage cheese, pasteurized milk, buttermilk, butter and cream. Rather than a lease, the college accepted a portion of the net proceeds. The college sold the milk its herd produced to the PCMPC and then shared the profits. The OAMC president appointed one member of the cooperative’s board, generally a faculty member from the Dairy Department.
Students majoring in dairy husbandry or interested in earning some side hustle funds were encouraged to sell milk to the creamery. This program also began in 1925 when 10 students, each with two cows, sold their raw milk to the creamery. They kept their cows with the college herd, paid for the feed and worked eight hours monthly to cover “barn rent.” Their earnings from this program averaged $1-2 per day.
OAMC President Bradford Knapp proposed the construction of a new $150,000 Dairy Building in his 1927-28 budget request. The Dairy Husbandry Department had continued to grow with a 38% increase in enrollment since 1910 and faculty expanded to five members with Arthur C. “Teddy” Baer as head. The previous Dairy Building was deficient in many ways, including outdated equipment and inadequate space for instruction and dairy product processing. There were also increasing demands for training dairy industry contributors statewide. A construction contract of $91,000 was awarded to Bailey-Burns Construction Company in November 1927 and construction started that winter. An additional $40,000 was allocated to purchase the most current dairy processing equipment.
The new Dairy Building was at the southeast corner of Farm Road and Monroe Street, considered the far northwest part of the OAMC campus. A new Animal Husbandry building and arena had been completed just northeast of the Dairy Building a few years earlier and the new dairy facility was only one block east of the Dairy Barn on Farm Road. This newest facility had three stories, with a one-story creamery added on the west side. The front of the building and main entrance doors of the structure faced east. With increasing barn construction heading west along Farm Road, this part of campus became the School of Agriculture’s domain.
A dedication ceremony was held on Sept. 1, 1928. Oklahoma Gov. Henry S. Johnston attended and Dr. Henry G. Bennett, OAMC’s new president, participated in a building dedication for the first time. Knapp had resigned several months earlier, and Bennett had been appointed during the summer. The PCMPC immediately moved into the creamery and the sale of dairy products on campus continued. Their sales office was on the north side of the first floor and included a constant flow of customers.
Beginning in the 1930s, the Dairy Club invited freshmen and sophomores to a tour of the building, view the creamery equipment in action and sample any dairy items they desired. Dairy short courses, which were offered on campus for dairy personnel statewide, also exposed new customers to the sales office. Small groups of faculty and students gathered year-round in the wide hallway behind the front doors, and eventually, a few chairs appeared.
A wide variety of dairy products continued to be sold during the war years from 1941-45 to a diverse set of customers, which at that time included many of the young military trainees on campus. But, after the war ended, demand for dairy items increased dramatically. Veterans Village, the site for GI students and their families built northwest of campus beginning in 1946, opened a Dairy Hut three years later that served ice cream and malts in four flavors: vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and cherry from noon until 10 p.m. These cold refreshments could be purchased as cones, pints or quarts.
At the same time, tables were added to the hallway at the Dairy Building for those wanting a dairy break. It was a place where dairy faculty, staff and students took breaks, but the dairy faculty also encouraged these interactions with others to promote milk and ice cream as snacks.
Dairy Building hallway congestion increased, and by 1952, a window was opened to a room on the south side of the main hallway where dairy storage and sales could occur. For most participants, this was the year the Dairy Bar arrived. The Dairy Department ran the business and benefited from the sales. Rolls and donuts, produced initially by spouses of the dairy faculty and later at resident hall bakeries, were brought in every morning and served with either milk or coffee.
As demand continued to increase, a display case was added, and additional refrigeration and freezer space was acquired for milk, cheese and ice cream storage. They also purchased a bigger coffee pot. A small campus community developed comprised of dairy providers and customers.
The Dairy Bar was initially open from 8:45 a.m. to noon and then again from 1:45 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. “Employees” included faculty, staff and students in the Dairy Department. In the early 1960s, sales included over 24 dozen rolls and donuts daily and by fall 1967, it was estimated that 150 to 200 pounds of cottage cheese were sold daily.
Dairy faculty member Robert Von Gunten estimated that almost 1,000 people visited the Dairy Bar daily, with some in the 1970s comparing it to Grand Central Station. Chairs and tables lined the adjacent hallway to handle overflow customers. Over time, additional products were sold and larger quantities could be purchased, such as 3-gallon tubs of ice cream. Hours of operation also expanded to 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 9:15 a.m. to noon on Saturday.
In 1967, the Dairy Science Department was merged with the other animal sciences and their direct involvement in the Dairy Bar sales was reduced. By 1981, the Student Union had taken over the operation of the Dairy Bar after the Animal Science Department had decided to close it. Dairy products continued to be available along with a wider variety of snacks and soft drinks, but they no longer existed exclusively as an effort to promote dairy products.
A contract was signed with Meadow Gold Dairy to provide dairy items, which were no longer produced at the university. The location remained popular for students, staff and faculty visiting that part of campus, which by then had a variety of academic, research and residence hall facilities filling the surrounding area. Agriculture students were only part of a large and eclectic group of patrons.
In the late 1970s, a third seating area was established outside the front door along the walkway between the Dairy Building and Life Sciences East. While the operation and atmosphere of the Dairy Bar changed with the transition to Student Union management, the Dairy Building’s condition continued in decline, especially after the completion of the new Animal Science Building. Steam pipes leading to the building to provide heat began leaking and repairs requiring asbestos removal led some in university administration to propose demolition in November 1989. The Dairy Bar remained profitable, and repairs were made when no alternative sites were identified.
In 1993, it was proposed that the Dairy Building be renovated and then made available to the Landscape Architecture Department. It was recommended that the Dairy Bar continue to operate on the first floor. Funds were never raised to meet the required costs for this proposal and the OSU Physical Plant in 1995 only renovated the Dairy Bar indoor seating area. The rest of the Dairy Building would remain empty. Hours were reduced and service ended at 3 p.m. Landscape architecture students expanded and renovated the outdoor seating in 1998.
Two OSU employees, Ermal Chapman and Nelda Henry, worked at the Dairy Bar for decades and knew many of their patrons by name. When Chapman retired, Royette Ramirez was hired to replace her and when Henry, known as the Dairy Bar Queen, retired in 2005, she had spent almost 25 years serving customers at the Dairy Bar. Within a year, the Dairy Building would be demolished to make room for the Henry Bellmon Research Center.
The Dairy Bar started as an informal place in a barn for a few to celebrate and enjoy ice cream along with other dairy delights. Over time, Dairy Department faculty, students and staff gathered at other locations to relax and endorse milk products, eventually becoming a popular gathering spot for many generations in the university community.
Customers and employees became friends and acquaintances while visiting, studying and having a snack sheltered from the busy academic environment around them.
Photos by: Archives
Story by: David Peters | STATE Magazine