The Ice Man Cometh

I grew up in the rolling hills of Ohio, where dairy farms were quite prevalent. The area had been settled in the early 1800's by many immigrants from Germany and Switzerland because it reminded them of their homeland. These immigrants took up the occupations they knew best, dairy farming and cheese making. When the industrial revolution took a foothold, producing and distributing fresh dairy products to city dwellers became a prosperous and growing industry. We were lucky enough to have one such locally owned dairy in my hometown. The Goshen Dairy was founded in 1920 and continued to grow and expand until 2002 when it was bought by a large dairy conglomerate. 
Some of my fondest childhood memories involve the Goshen Dairy from eating the best Ice cream in the world, to the little individual bottles of milk we received each day in elementary school as an afternoon snack. But my fondest memories were of the horse drawn wagons that delivered dairy products to our home as late as 1972. You heard that right, milk, butter, Ice cream and other dairy items were delivered right to our door by a horse drawn wagon, chilled by large blocks of Ice, in the 70's! 

 Our milk man's name was Dan and the horse who visited our house everyday, spring through fall was Dewey. The two of them are pictured above. I knew what time Dewey would arrive at our home and waited impatiently on the front porch to hear the clip clop of his hooves coming down the street. Dewey was a beautiful Belgium Draft Horse and I thought the smartest horse ever! Dan would stop in front of a house, leave the products on the front steps and as he walked back towards the wagon, Dewey would automatically move on to the next house without being told to do so. Oh the conversations I had with Dewey as he waited to move on to the next house. As luck would have it, our house was one of the last stops before Dan and Dewey would make their way downtown to the barn. To lighten the load for Dewey on his trip back to the barn, Dan would toss the large blocks of Ice on to the street where the neighborhood kids would grab them and slide back and forth across the street as we sat on them. What fun on a hot summer day! I always hated when Winter arrived and Dan had to make his rounds in a truck and I wouldn't get to see Dewey for months. The horse drawn delivery ended in March of 1972 when the barn was destroyed by lightening and the big Belgium draft horses were moved to the country. 
A few years ago as the last dairy store was closed, they held an auction of all the dairy's belongings. The four horse drawn wagons used on the different routes were sold and brought between $8,200 and $11,000 dollars each. My sister attended the auction and bought a number of items and surprised me just this past Christmas with two of the items she bought! 
This little replica of the horse drawn wagons is actually a bank. I'm not sure of it's exact age but I think they might have been made in the 70's to commemorate the end of the horse drawn era. 

This next item is a cardboard megaphone that once held milk or some other beverage. They always sold these during football season so that customers could consume the contents, remove the top and the bottom and have a megaphone to take with them to the local high school games. 

What a clever advertising stunt! I can't believe this thing actually survived all these years. Thanks for sharing one of my fondest childhood memories. xxoo Nan
I'll be linking this to: 
Vintage Thingie Thursday at Colorado Lady
and
Alphabe Thursday for the Letter I at Jenny Matlocks