CASS CLAY DAIRY MILK BOTTLE Red River Valley Fargo, ND

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CASS CLAY DAIRY MILK BOTTLE Fargo, ND Red River Valley REG.. 1-11-14 One Quart bottle from CASS CLAY CO-OP , Red River Valley.Fargo, ND Great Graphics on label Excellent Condition No blemishes .Embossed around the bottom of bottle "REGISTERED SEALED 1-11-14 MTC ONE QUART LIQUID M INN", No chips or cracks in the Bottle I do not know a whole lot about milk bottles I bought this bottle & others at an Estate Auction I will answer any question I can. Please make your decision to bid on pictures, Shipping will be combined on multiple purchases. CASS CLAY DAIRY Dream The dream became reality on October 1, 1935. The dream was to build a company with no single owner, but many owners. The dream was a cooperative effort to turn the worst of times into something good. The dream was bigger than the obstacles it had to overcome. The dream was the Cass-Clay Cooperative Creamery Association. Founded in the depths of the Great Depression with a small staff and meager payroll, Cass-Clay now employs more than 300 people. Optimism and team spirit pervade our entire organization -- two qualities that have grown, like the creamery, ever since those dark days of our beginning. Those qualities have enabled us to fulfill our mission of being the best at what we do -- of taking one of nature's most perfect products and actually improving it. Our mission is summed up in a phrase that appears proudly on every Cass-Clay carton and every Cass-Clay advertisement -- "We make good things better." In the Beginning The year 1932 was the worst of times for practically everyone, and to a small farmer like Ben Briggs, it looked as if things would get much, much worse before they got better. If they ever got better. Because of the Red River Valley's short growing season, some farmers like Ben supplemented their income by keeping small dairy herds. Their only market was the "centralizer," a large plant in Moorhead, Minnesota, that bought their dairy output for local and national distribution. However, the centralizer had no competition and could pay the farmers whatever it wished. Its prices dropped until they barely covered the cost of feed and labor. The dairy farmers were faced with a brutal choice: take it and like it, or get out of the business. Ben Briggs was approached by Charles Ommodt, a field man for the Land-O-Lakes Dairy Cooperative, about setting up a local creamery to compete with the centralizer. "Whether or not you join Land-O-Lakes is up to you," Ommodt told him, "but at least you'll have yourselves a creamery." Intrigued by the idea, Ben cranked up the party line and invited local dairymen to a meeting. With his friend Andrew Headland, he completed the signup of dairy farmers a year later, in the fall of 1933. Together, they persuaded a group of Fargo-Moorhead businessmen to pledge a matching amount of money. Despite threats from the centralizer, which even planted a spy in the farmers' organization, the Cass-Clay project moved forward. At an official stockholders' meeting on May 31, 1934, Emil Mattson was hired as the first General Manager of the Cass-Clay Creamery. Albert Koops was elected President, Andrew Headland, Treasurer, and Ben Briggs was named Secretary of the Board of Directors. The first order of business was to start construction as soon as possible. To save money, the building committee decided to use farm labor whenever they could. A farm carpenter built the form for the foundation. Ben Briggs, his two oldest sons and a couple of his neighbors mixed the concrete and laid the floor. Bricklayers were hired to put up the walls. Since the non-farm laborers had to be paid, Ben took it upon himself to visit a few businessmen on Saturday mornings to forage for money. While the building was going up, Mattson and the board of directors decided not to join Land-O-Lakes, since they felt Cass-Clay could do as well or better selling its own produce locally. The new company would take its chances in the marketplace as an independent co-op creamery. The p... read more

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