Museum Matters

In September of 1912 a new creamery was being installed in the Lafferty building across from City Hall. This apparently was common for small businesses to come to towns such as Dublin. A creamery and a pharmacy was also operating in Lingleville as well. (Dublin Progress, September 6, 1912) But, in 1928 a new larger creamery would come to Dublin. It was created and operated by W.T. Music. It churned its first pound of butter on September 12, 1928.

“One ton of butter was the amount produced during the first week’s operation, 1350 pounds of the ton was shipped to Chicago, the balance to Denton, Texas.” The plant was capable of producing eighteen tons of butter per week.

The plant was paying 12 cents per pound above the price of sour cream for sweet cream. Farmers were getting 50 cents per pound for their sweet cream.

It was first organized by Walter Hamilton President, W. T. Music Vice President and General Manager. E. W. Harris was secretary and treasurer.

By 1938 it was producing more than 400,000 pounds of butter on an annual basis.

On September 20, 1936 it was also producing 700 pounds of high grade Longhorn and Daisy Cheeses each day. The Dublin Creamery was one of the few creameries of the country that showed a profit during the Great Depression in 1938.

Besides its regular business it also had a large produce business, buying and selling thousands of of turkeys and poultry. An average of ten acres of turkeys and poultry were shipped by the creamery business yearly. 1,800 cases of eggs were also handled each year.

The plant shipped to such markets as New Orleans, Houston, El Paso, Tyler. Mr. Music kept on top of prices to take advantage of price fluctuations.

“The cheese department of the Dublin Creamery is modern in every respect. Milk is received on a specially build dock where it is weighed and poured by a trough into a 600 gallon pasteurizer. Pasteurization is at 150 degrees for a period of thirty minutes. It is then cooled to 87 degrees for coag u l ation”( Dubl i n Progress September 23, 1938, section four) The creamery was later purchased by Vandervoorts in Fort Worth and continued to operate under the management of Mary and Calvin Hazlewood, with the trade name, Hazlewood DairyProducts Company in Dublin, “The Heart of Erath County Texas”Calvin Hazlewood was brother to Velma Vandervoort.

The company bottled milk, made soft serve ice cream, produced cheese and butter, as well as served as the collection point for fresh milk from local dairies. Trucks would deliver Dublin milk to the main plant in Fort Worth.

The Vandervoort company was sold after the founder, Henry Carl Vandervoort died suddenly in 1960. It was sold to a group of dairy farmers in 1962.” The trade name “Vandervoorts” was then discontinued. (vandervoorts.net)