Dairymens Easter Packaging – March 1955

Easter was still a month away in 1955 when Dairymens launched a special holiday promotion.

During Lent, Dairymens Whipped Cream (yum) Cottage Cheese came in special cartons. As shown in the ad, the carton – when empty – could be converted into a mini-easter basket with the addition of a cardboard or pipe cleaner handle. There were six "gayly colored baskets" to collect.

It's a cute idea. Nowadays, though, I'm sure companies would avoid this kind of marketing gimmick, being too afraid to offend someone.

As you can see from the ad, pineapple was the upcoming 'special flavor' of cottage cheese. (By the way, I almost never eat plain cottage cheese. I prep it first by throwing some grape jelly into it, making a sort of "poor man's yogurt" out of it. I learned that culinary trick from one of my Ohio State roomies.)

I had forgotten all about pipe cleaners, though. I wonder if they were ever used to clean pipes?

Anyway, the ad ran in the Lorain Journal on March 10, 1955 – 60 years ago this month.

Dairymens New Plant on Abbe Road Opens – Sept. 29, 1956

Here's an ad for an Open House at the brand new Dairymens facility that was located on Abbe Road near the railroad tracks between E. Lake Road and Colorado Avenue. The ad appeared in the Lorain Journal on September 29, 1956 – 58 years ago today.

I wonder what the refreshments were at that 1956 Open House? I have a hunch that it wasn't punch – and that chilled glasses of delicious, farm-fresh milk were served instead.

I've written about Dairymens on this blog before, including here.

What I didn't know until recently was that Dairymens had bought out Mackert's Dairy on Abbe Road in Sheffield Village in 1954. Dairymens operated it as a substation, and eventually constructed the new, modern plant (mentioned in the grand opening ad) just north of the Mackert's Dairy cow barn.

You can download a terrific 2009 article from The Village Pioneer that provides the entire history of Sheffield's Dairy Industry by clicking here.  (Actually it's the whole issue.) As with all of his research topics, Sheffield Village Historical Society Director Charles "Eddie" Herdendorf has done the incredible work of digging up the complete story, and then compiling a fascinating narrative, complete with vintage photos and interviews with the people involved.

Whatever happened to the Dairymens plant? According to the Village Pioneer article, Dairymens closed their Sheffield operations in 1969. And Sandy (my source for Sheffield Lake local history) reminded me that the abandoned dairy complex at 1181 Abbe Road later became the home of Patrick Electric and the storefront for Village Lighting.

You can see the Dairymens plant's "footprint" on this current Bing Maps aerial below. The facility was located just south of the railroad tracks on the east side of Abbe Road. Some of the former Mackert Dairy buildings can be seen immediately south of it.

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UPDATE (Oct. 13, 2024)

Recently, I received an email from Dave Hobson who shared some additional information about the building. He wrote, "Dan, I read your article about Dairymans on Abbe Road. Just a note about its later use. 

"From about 1972 until about 1975, the building was used by the Stern Swimming Pool Corp. as a sales and warehousing/distribution center. They were headquartered in North Olmsted and later moved the distribution center to Berea Road, near W. 117th in Cleveland.

"I worked for them during this period as did one of the Mackert children."

Thanks for sharing, Dave! It's nice to be able to have a more complete picture of what businesses called that location home when the dairy days were over with.

All the Dairy Best to Sheffield Lake

Although I've lived in Sheffield Lake for ten years, I haven't given it too much attention on this blog. As a result, when I do stumble upon something with a Sheffield Lake connection that's even mildly interesting, I try to get it onto this blog ASAP to ease my guilty conscience.

Here's something that fits into that category. It's a 1959 newspaper ad for a Dairymens facility in Sheffield Lake. (Click on it for a larger view.) It appeared in a Lorain anniversary edition of the Journal, so consequently the focus of the ad is that Lorain is growing so rapidly that Dairymens added a Lorain County delivery station.

It's interesting that a Cleveland dairy would make such inroads into Lorain County, since there were already so many dairies out here at that time, such as Home Dairy, the Lorain Creamery and Clovervale Creamery. I guess since home delivery was still big at that time, there was room for everybody. Now, more than fifty years later, all of the local dairies are gone, and only Dairymens in Cleveland is still around. Here's a link to the Dairymens website (although it doesn't seem to work very well.)

I drove up Abbe Road in Sheffield Lake in a futile attempt to see if the building pictured in the photo was still there. According to the address listed in the city directory at the time, the facility was located near or just south of where the railroad tracks cross Abbe Road. Today of course there is a huge overpass at that location, so apparently the building is long gone.