About a mile south of East Parker Road, on Delbert, touching the corner of Meadow Station, stood a dairy that began to look abandoned by the early 1990s. The REAL MILK sign was faded and pocked and weeds and grass grew around the barns.
Maybe a symbol of a larger trend throughout the County, which was known once for its dairies and seemed to have a thriving industry in milk up until the late 1950’s.
In the Elbert County Banner on April 19, 1907, H.M. Cottrell urged new immigrants to purchase dairy cattle if they were planning to settle in Elbert County. Dairy cattle cost very little, he argued, and could sustain a family and bring money to the farm more quickly and efficiently than could sheep or beef cattle. Besides, he said, the land could sustain dairy cattle easily.
It would make a great deal of sense. An emigrant family like the Shimerdas in Willa Cather’s My Antonia could not only have their own milk, cream, cheese, and butter from a cow but sell some of the extra, which, by 1911, a lot of folks were doing.
According to the Commercial West of April 5 of that year, there were eleven “milk stations” throughout the county, and creameries in Elizabeth and Elbert. They did not mention the creamery in Fondis, the creamery in Kiowa, or the creamery in Simla. There was also a cheese factory in Elbert. Dairying seemed to encircle every town in Elbert County, and it was “ideal dairying country…grass rich and plentiful, climate just right for good stock raising…rainfall sufficient to raise all the forage crops needed.”
One dairyman from that time, E.T. Evans, “has receipts up to $800/month.” That’s $7,095.75 in today’s money. Per year, that’s over $80,000.00.
The milk would be picked up from the “stations” and taken to Elizabeth or Elbert, where it would be loaded on the Denver and New Orleans Railroad to go to Colorado Springs. It would be bottled there and made available for delivery.
By 1925, the Moffat County Bell reported that “Elbert County is now ranking as the leading dairy county in Colorado.”
To advertise its success, the Chamber of Commerce of Elizabeth had a papier mache cow made for display at the Dry Farming Exposition, held in the fall in Colorado Springs.
All this journalism would seem to herald a thriving dairy industry in Elbert County today, and although there are still a few dairy farms in Elbert County, dairying has all but disappeared. In the Elbert County Fair Books for 1955, 1956, and1957, it is obvious that dairying is an important staple of exhibition at the newly-built Fairgrounds in Kiowa. All sorts of categories and distinctions abound regarding dairy cattle, filling two pages of close-typed print. The information dwindles in 1958 and by 1962, dairy cattle aren’t even mentioned. It’s not that 4-H doesn’t have exhibitions and contests regarding dairy cattle; it doesn’t seem that Elbert County had 4-H dairy cattle anymore or that anyone was doing the dairy cattle projects.
The flood of 1936 contributed to the end of the dairy industry in Elbert County. It wiped out the cheese factory in Elbert and seemed to wipe out all the creameries in Elizabeth and Elbert. It also wiped out the railroad, which received permission to stop serving Elbert County after reconstruction was deemed unprofitable.
So couldn’t the dairies send their product by truck to the Springs? Likely; and it was probably done on a regular basis, and even though 1936 was not a great time to start or rebuild a business, there is evidence that Elizabeth had a creamery, as did Kiowa.
Another couple of reasons that we don’t see dairy farms all along Road 13 or Highway 86 anymore is the weather and dairying itself.
Dairy cows need forage and lots of it. A dry year in Elbert County makes it real hard to find much forage and it’s possible that a successful dairy could go bust just feeding supplemental hay to its cattle.
During World War II, Elbert County was known for its beef cattle and sheep; not for its dairy. Raising beef cattle is more profitable and a bit less intense than milking twice a day.
