CREAMERY (FIRST)

Originally located across the road east of the Farm House.

The decision to operate a creamery on the College farm was made in late 1878 and an appropriation of $300 was provided the following spring, with the funds to be paid from sales of wood and lumber from the farm. The 1878-79 Biennial Report describes the building:

A neat and convenient creamery building, sixteen by twenty-four feet, has been erected without cost to the State. All the necessary apparatus, including an engine and boiler, churn, butter worker, Cooley creamer, milk-vat, cans, buckets, etc., have been supplied at a cost of $379.50.

In 1882 a creamery, ice house and cold storage building was erected with $1000 appropriated by the legislature. This was apparently an addition to the original building. Plans were prepared by a Prof. Bellanger of Des Moines.

The 18th Biennial Report (1888-89) reported: “The creamery has been pronounced by some of the best dairymen in the state to be entirely unfit for our purposes. There is surely no inducement for a student to pursue the study of dairying there.”

In 1891 the Creamery was moved east a few yards and remodeled for the farm foreman’s residence. It also served as a boarding house for farm workmen.

It was razed in 1927 to make way for the new Dairy Industries Building.