Sherburne History Center Blog

Orrock Creamery circa 1900 Notice the multitude of milk cans in each wagon,  waiting to do business with the Creamery With the closing of June as National Dairy Month, it seemed appropriate to recognize the importance of the dairy industry and the creameries to Sherburne County.   For decades in the late 1800s and early 1900s, farmers recognized Central Minnesota as a significant producer of dairy.   As late as the 1980s, the region was recognized as the “golden buckle of the dairy belt.”   In the middle of this region, Sherburne County creameries offered quality milk, butter and cheese.   The multitude of milk producers and their distributors in Sherburne County need to be recognized for their impact on the local economy and history.   From the Elk River Creamery, and its related Twin Cities Milk Producers Association, to the Orrock Creamery and Becker Creamery, they all served a significant role in the agriculture history of the county. Ad...

“Somebody,” the Sherburne County Star News in November 1919 reported, “has discovered a new way of reducing the high cost of living.”  Thieves victimized farmers in Sherburne County for several years by stealing anything they might be able to eat or sell.  A thieving crime wave first appeared in 1919, Jim Brown a Livonia Township farmer reported a two-year-old steer butchered in his field.  The thieves took “everything along except the head the entrails,” the paper reported.  According to the reporter, Brown’s steer was the second Sherburne County theft by butcher that year.  The paper also recalled several sheep had been similarly stolen.  “It may be that an organized band of thieves are operating in this section,” the Star News suggested.  Later in the 1920s, organized gangs of thieves again operated in the county.  For more than three years, 1921 to 1924, butter thieves targeted creameries owned by the Twin Cities Milk Producers Associ...