Stories about milk, milkman and more

Milk didn’t always come in plastic-coated cardboard cartons. Way back in the 1950s, it came in pint-or quart-sized glass bottles and was delivered to your door twice a week by Fred the milkman or his teenaged helper on the truck.

Fred watched the card in your front window for any change in the number or kind of milk you wanted, but he had pretty well memorized the type and number of milk products wanted by every household he served in Havre. If it was below freezing outside, Fred would put the milk inside the door. If hot in midsummer, he would put it in a shady spot outside or even go inside and put it in the refrigerator.

Fred knew his customers and they knew him. Fred watched out for little kids’ en route to school who wandered off the prescribed route. Sometimes he would redirect them himself or inform a worried parent. Fred also supplied milk to the several small neighborhood stores that existed in early Havre. If heavy snow blocked door-to-door delivery, Fred would drive the truck to the nearest school and distribute milk from there. Everybody in Havre and the vicinity knew Fred and his milk truck They knew him and appreciated his service.

Fred went to work for the brand new Vita Rich Dairy in July 1947. There were more than five individual milk suppliers located around the edges of town prior to that date. Some made home deliveries but, aware of future growth and changes in the industry, they joined the cooperative effort and assisted in its development

In 1948, the dairy’s receiving and processing plant, located on 1st Street, had only five or six employees in the plant and only one in the office. When the dairy closed in 1987 there were close to 25 employees in the plant and four or five in the office. Obviously, the plant expanded several times. The closing of the local plant meant the changing or closing of the supplying local dairy farms. The negative effects were felt in the overall agricultural as well as business community.

Milk originally arrived at the dairy in 10-gallon metal cans that came primarily from local producers. Within a very few years, additional amounts were gathered in large tanker trucks and from producers located some distance outside of the Havre area. The plant initially distributed only milk but rapidly branched out in supplying a variety of milk products including locally made cottage cheese. Virtually all those products operated under the surveillance of the Montana Milk Control Board and underwent regular inspections. The dairy advertised its “quality checked” products and operated its own laboratory to emphasize the quality of its products. Another dairy did exist, the B&C, not even a full block west of Vita Rich, but it closed down late in the 1960s.

Though Fred was the most visible representative of the Vita Rich Dairy because of his in-town daily delivery routes, the big tanker trucks that gathered milk from distant sources outside of Havre also made an impression on the business communities both in Havre and the Hi-Line area.

The location of the dairy plant on 1st Street influenced a change in the type of businesses initially in operation there. Havre’s first “Dairy Queen” opened just west of the main office bringing new business interests there also.

The large grocery stores of the present offer well over 10 different milk products to the consumer on a regular basis. Some holidays bring additional products. The  in-store  displays and the varieties offered are impressive  but  some “old timers” miss the friendly personalized home delivery service once provided by Fred for the old Vita Rich dairy.