In this October 1941 photo, a cheesemaker heats the culture that will be added to milk to begin the cheesemaking process. The culture, with bacteria, was added to the warmed milk. Then coloring, made from annatto seeds, was added. Rennet made the milk coagulate. As former factory tour guide Linda Kirk said in the book… READ MORE
Category Archives: Factory System
Alice Becker
Alice Becker worked in the large factory’s laboratory. As shown in this early 1950s photo, her job included testing milk samples when the cans of milk came into the factory. Her son Marty’s obituary described her as a “dairy chemist.” Photo credit: The Tillamook Way, Tillamook County Creamery Association’s self-published history READ MORE
Ad Explaining Big Split
In 1963, Tillamook Cheese & Dairy paid for a newspaper ad explaining why Red Clover and TCDA were splitting from Tillamook County Creamery Association. The reasons included: anemic cheese sales; static sales despite more cheese consumption nationally; and policy decisions that weren’t made by the farmers. (Credit: Shopping Smiles, 9.26.63) READ MORE
Merger, Red Clover and Cheese & Dairy
On December 31, 1965, Red Clover Cheese Factory merged with Tillamook Cheese and Dairy. It was the only small factory that sided with Cheese & Dairy during the Cheese War, and it remained independent although close to the town of Tillamook until the inefficiencies of small factory production, combined with production space in the large… READ MORE
Cheese Molds and Cheesemakers
Here’s a photo of the interior of a Tillamook cheese factory. It shows workers behind a milk vat and stacks of round cheese molds. (Photo credit: Oregon Historical Society Research Library CN 258727) READ MORE
1936 Production of Tillamook Cheese Factories
The 17 factories with cheese that was marketed by Tillamook County Creamery Association reported their production for 1936. More than 7.5 million pounds of milk became more than 8.5 million pounds of cheese with a value of more than $1,707,000, or $38,475,658 today. (Unknown source) READ MORE
Holstein Creamery
Holstein Creamery was on the east side of Tillamook, one of many small factories in the early days of Tillamook County’s cheesemaking. It was near the Fairview Cheese Factory, east of the Odd Fellows Cemetery. Records show that Holstein was in operation in 1918. When the large factory opened north of town in 1949, Holstein… READ MORE
1913 Cheese Factory
This Tillamook-area cheese factory was one of several small factories in the central Tillamook County region that functioned before consolidation into the one large factory north of Tillamook after it was built in 1949. In early 1969, all remaining Tillamook County factories were forced to join that large factory. One of the causes of the… READ MORE
Making Cheese
This 1941 photo shows an employee at the big Tillamook cheese factory working on a vat of future cheese. Rennet was a key ingredient in creating the cheese. As Linda Kirk, who was a guide back when visitors could walk around the production floor, wrote in the book, Cheese War, “Rennet causes the milk to… READ MORE
Storage of Cheese
This 1958 photo shows cheese aging in the Tillamook factory’s cold storage room. (Photo from Northwest Digital Heritage) READ MORE
