Part I

What a change has come over the farm scene in the past century. Even as late as the ’40s and early ’50s, nearly every farmer was a dairyman. He may have had only one milk cow that furnished the family with their daily supply of milk, or he may have had a herd of 10 or more, which he milked by hand, separating the cream from the milk by using a DeLaval or another such cream separator. The cream was put into large cans, and the extra milk was mixed with ground grain and fed to the hogs. Before the days of electricity the only method of keeping the cream sweet was by cold well water running through a cooling tank and on to the stock tank, so it was necessary to have the cream churned as soon as possible.

Until 1895 the farmers in the Russell area had been churning their own cream and selling their butter to the stores along with the milk and cream, but a creamery would be more profitable as well as convenient. The first Farmers’ Creamery was organized and built on a spot called “creamery hill.” Mr. Frank Beyer was the first manager and butter-maker. (There was a spillway running from the creamery to the river to dispose of the liquids from the process of churning — there were no pollution laws then.) Unfortunately, this was only in operation about four years when it burned to the ground, creating some spectacular, unplanned fireworks in July 4, 1899, and Russell again was without a creamery.

Cream stations sprang up in town, collecting the cream, hauling it to the railroad loading docks and shipping it out to the nearest creameries. On a hot summer day the cream didn’t always smell so sweet as it was standing on the dock, and the quality of the butter wasn’t the best either.

It wasn’t until 1921 that a second creamery, the Farmers’ Cooperative Creamery, was organized and built south of the depot where the Mini Market now stands. These were members of the Land O’Lakes Corp., and the butter carried that label.

The creamery was one of the most attractive buildings in town, all brick construction with vines growing up the front of the building and beautiful shrubbery on the boulevard. During the Depression of the middle ’30s much of the dairy stock had to be sold and many lost feed from the severe droughts that hit the area. Despite these challenges the creamery was able to survive until better times again brought the creamery to good production.

The long hours began at 5 a.m. and continued long after the sun had set with no such thing as “overtime pay.” The creamery was open Wednesday and Saturday nights until 10 p.m. for “trading,” which included poultry and eggs, a well as dairy products. Other nights during the week the employees would go out to the farm places and catch chickens out of the trees and outbuildings for the farmers who wanted to sell them.

By 1937 the creamery had to bow to progress, and the building was torn down to make way for the new Highway 23 that came through the heart of town. A new creamery building was constructed at the west end of Main Street on the site of the present complex.

The years that followed the moving of the creamery site in 1937 were prosperous years for the Russell Cooperative Creamery. Farm economy was on the upswing after the Depression and the drought of the 30s, and the dairy business grew as a result of this. The volume of business increased along with the economy, and the changeover from strictly cream to whole milk added to the volume of the business, making Russell one of the top creameries in production in the area by the late 1950s.

(Continued next week)

Sources: Our First Hundred Years — Russell, MN 188801988; notes from Arloene Olsen of Russell.