From the book History of Walworth County Wisconsin, by Albert Clayton Beckwith, 
publ. 1912 - Pages 590 - 591
 
The Wisconsin Butter and Cheese Company.  One of the most popular and widely 
known business firms in Walworth county is the Wisconsin Butter and Cheese 
Company, with head offices in Waukesha, Wisconsin, being the largest and best 
equipped concern of its kind in this locality, if not in this part of the 
state, in fact, there are comparatively few creamery factories anywhere that 
equal it.
 
About 1890 Messrs. HARRIS and WEST, together with George E. PUFFER and George 
HARRIS, formed the Wisconsin Butter and Cheese Company, a corporation with a 
capital stock of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.  Mr. PUFFER and George 
B. HARRIS went to Waukesha and took charge of the plant there, while J. H. 
HARRIS and Mr. WEST remained at Elkhorn in charge of the plant here, the former 
being president of the company and latter vice-president.  They operated at one 
time twenty-seven creameries.
 
Their original plant at Elkhorn was near the fair grounds, but in 1904 they 
removed to near the station of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad 
Company, in order to secure better side track and shipping facilities, and 
there they erected their present commodious and substantial plant, a model 
indeed of an up-to-date factory for dairy products, modern in every 
appointment, sanitary and convenient.  The building is of yellow pressed brick 
and it is so handsomely finished that travelers have frequently mistaken it for 
a hotel.  Even the huge smokestack is ornamental, being neatly decorated with 
designs made of various colored brick with the letters W. B. & C. Co. showing 
plainly up and down the smoke stack.  Along the front are two driveways where 
every morning long lines of teams are drawn up to unload the milk that is 
hauled in from all directions.  Rapidly the milk is received, weighed, a sample 
taken for testing in the chemical laboratory and then poured out to run in a 
constant flow to the large receptacles on the floor below.
 
All through the factory runs a thorough system for handling the milk, making it 
into butter, Neufchatel and cream cheese, casein, condensed milk, or shipping 
the cream.  Various machines and appliances are needed for such work and they 
have installed the most approved and latest designs.  Power is furnished from 
four high-pressure boilers of one hundred and fifty horse power each, and two 
other boilers of lesser power.  They also have a good system of cold storage 
rooms and coolers.  Water to operate the plant is drawn from a deep drilled 
well.  They have their own ice plant and a tower for cooling water.  The 
hydraulic elevator facilitates the work of the factory.  For the convenience 
and cleanliness of the employees of the factory, there are toilet and dressing 
rooms equipped with shower baths.
 
Here is to be found a complete battery of cream separators, also large 
Pasteurizers.  A large copper vacuum retort, costing three thousand dollars, is 
used for condensing milk, where the air is drawn out, forming such a vacuum 
that milk will boil at a temperature of one hundred and twelve degrees.  The 
condensed milk is either canned in small tins or put in bulk into cans, cooled 
in the coolers where fifty cans at a time are revolved by machinery in cold 
water until cold enough to ship to the ice cream factories.  From the skimmed 
milk casein is made, or dried curds, which is then put through a dry kiln and 
thoroughly dried, then shipped away to make sizing, glazing and glue.
 
In its earlier stage of manufacture it resembles the Neufchatel cheese, of 
which this company makes a most excellent quality, which is very popular; that 
made here is the Elkhorn brand and that made at the Waukesha plant is the Arrow 
brand.
 
This concern manufactures about fifteen hundred pounds of butter a day at the 
present time; they ship a car load of cream daily to Chicago; they handle as 
high as eighty to ninety thousand pounds of milk daily, and their business is 
constantly increasing.
 
For shipping facilities they have a cement platform along the rear end of the 
building, from which their products are wheeled directly into the cars, lined 
upon the tracks to receive them.  It would be hard to find a more thoroughly 
equipped or systematically managed plant of this nature than that of the 
Wisconsin Butter and Cheese Company.

Submitted By:  Carol
(carolann612@charter.net)