Hugh Barber

The Holstein Creamery was one of the many small little creameries that dotted the Tillamook Valley. It was established in late 1917, at which time it became a member creamery of the Tillamook County Creamery Association.

In this photo from 1938, Hugh Barber, head cheesemaker at the Holstein Creamery, accepts a load of milk from one of the dairy farmers. All of the milk was weighed and tested before it was sent to one of the cheese vats. Tacked by the door was a tally sheet showing the pounds of milk received, which is how a farmer was, and still is, paid for their milk.

The second cheesemaker standing by the vat is monitoring the filling of the vat and the beginning of the cheesemaking process.

The Holstein Creamery was located on Third Street in Tillamook, just east of the fairgrounds. At one point it burned down, a common occurrence at creameries since hot fires were needed to create the steam used to heat the milk. The Holstein Creamery was rebuilt and operated until its owners, along with three other local creameries, merged and created the Tillamook Cheese & Dairy Association. Together with TCCA, the two groups built the new, centrally-located plant, which is still a part of our operating plant today.

The Holstein Creamery was torn down a few years ago.

By Chandra

Merriman Foland

Many of the pioneers who moved to the Tillamook Valley brought with them a cow or two to provide their family with fresh milk and butter. A few even made their own version of cheese called “Dutch cheese” or what was probably also called pot cheese. According to all accounts, it was similar to cottage cheese.

Surrounded by a generous supply of milk, a few folks attempted to make a harder cheese, like cheddar. It really was the product of choice since it was easier to store and transport. Butter would often turn rancid before it could reach the markets. But cheese, especially a cheese like cheddar, could survive a journey on a trading vessel.

A man by the name of Merriman Foland left New York after fighting with the Union Army during the Civil War. After serving time as a prisoner of war, he moved to California and spent time working at a dairy learning to make cheese. In 1878, he packed his belongings and moved to Beaver, Oregon, with his wife.

With his acquired knowledge and all the milk, he decided he was going to make cheese. He was so sure he remembered the recipe. Well, he didn’t. His first batch of cheese was a disaster. Some of the cheese rounds  were so swollen with trapped gasses that they rolled right off the shelves. Other rounds exploded! The entire batch was inedible.

“I must not have remembered very well how they made them cheeses in California,” he remarked to a friend.

Merriman was a workaholic and he kept working at that recipe until he made an edible batch of cheese. He didn’t have an opportunity to get much further than that. Shortly after his triumph, he died in 1893.

But 1893 was a turning point in Tillamook County’s history of cheesemaking. It was a year that forever set us on the path as being cheddar country. More on that later…

By Chandra

Construction of our first centrally-located plant, 1949.

As the county grew and roads improved, there was no longer the need for all of the little creameries dotting the Tillamook Valley to continue to receive milk and make cheese. The smooth, paved roads made it easier for the farmers to travel greater distances to deliver their milk. Many of the creameries began to consolidate their operations or shut down.

In 1948, four of the TCCA’s member creameries decided to make cheese as a single operation and together they formed the Tillamook Cheese and Dairy Association. This new association, in partnership with the already existing TCCA, constructed a large plant north of the city of Tillamook.

On Nov. 2, 1949, the entire county celebrated the dedication of the new, centrally-located plant. It was large and modern. An expansive wall of glass windows let the sunlight shine on the stainless steel cheese vats in the cheesemaking room. There was a warehouse, ice plant, whey condenser, milk bottling room, packaging department, laboratory for testing the quality of milk and cheese, and a production area for making cottage cheese, butter and ice cream.

There were also many innovative ideas, such as the triple-deck storage system in the warehouse to utilize all of the available floor-to-ceiling space, and a new machine allowing TCCA to replace the traditional glass milk bottles with paper cartons. There also was a continuous belt conveyor installed to move the full cans of milk into the plant. 

It’s undergone a few expansions since then, but hidden within the walls of today’s plant still exists the original footprint of the 1949 plant.

By Chandra

John Wyss, Perrin and Adam Schmelzer operated the power curd mill at Beaver Creamery. Addie Bunn stands in the background.

Steam was very important for making cheese in the smaller creameries. When the creameries were running, boilers were constantly being fed wood to keep the fire high in order to generate the steam needed to heat the vats during the cheesemaking process.

But steam had other uses, too. Once the cheesemaking process became mechanized, steam was used to run some of the equipment. The best example is of the early power curd mills. This photo shows the first power curd mill for the Beaver Creamery, and possible for the county (circa 1910). The mill was used to cut the slabs of curd into small, uniform pieces, which were then salted and pressed into hoops.

By Chandra

Bohren Farm

Have you ever wondered about the big painted quilt blocks displayed on local barns and businesses in Tillamook County? They’re part of the Tillamook County Quilt Trail, the first quilt trail on the West coast.

The trail is a partnership between a coalition of local citizens and businesses to identify historic barns and other buildings in Tillamook County, enhance them with large painted wooden quilt blocks, share the history of the dairy farms and quilts through a self-guided tour for visitors, and to celebrate Tillamook’s rural heritage.

The barn pictured here is called the Bohren Farm and is displaying a pattern block called Lone Star. Here is the description posted in the Tillamook County Quilt Trail map:

Bohren Farm - One of the earliest owners was Peter Morgan. He also was part-owner of the sailing ship Morning Star, whose replica sits in front of the Cheese Factory. Tom Hyder later purchased the farm. Tom grew barley on the farm and made moonshine. In 1949, Gottlieb Bohren and his sons bought the farm from Tom Bohren, a Swiss immigrant, who had lived on the farm next door. During a remodel of the barn, hundreds of whiskey bottles were found under the floorboards of the barn. The original farm house was just north of the barn, but blew down in the 1950s. Gottlieb’s brother Albert was in the house at the time but came out ok. The Obrist family bought this farm from the Bohrens in the mid-1990s, because they felt the need to expand their home dairy, located on Trask River Road, when all three of their sons decided to return home and work with their father, Richard Obrist. (Lone Star)

By Heidi

In the early 1930s, we began researching the possibility of smaller sized cuts of our cheese, including a method of canning cheese! We learned that the “severest competitor” to our larger rounds of cheddar was packaged cheese in consumer-friendly weights. At this time in our history, most of the cheese we made came in wheels or larger blocks that were kept, normally, in a cheese case in grocery stores. Consumers asked for an amount, and the proprietor would slice it from the larger block and wrap it in brown paper.

By 1947, we began marketing our first rindless cheese. Tillamook rindless cheese was made by aging a 20-pound block of cheddar without its cheesecloth wrapping. Once the block was ready, smaller 1- and ½-pound weights were cut from the large block. To package the cheese, an inner wrap was applied, followed by a cellophane overwrap. When the main Tillamook plant was constructed in 1949, it included a packaging department for rindless-cheese cutting and wrapping.

Today, the process is much simpler. Smaller weights are cut from a 40-pound block and, instead of an inner and outer wrap, there is only one, colorful wrapper hiding the cheesy goodness inside.

By Chandra

For decades, we have been sharing with consumers delicious recipes featuring our Tillamook products. Nowadays it’s as easy as visiting our website to get the recipes. But decades ago, fans of our cheese would send away to the cooperative and wait for a booklet full of Tillamook Cheese recipes to be mailed to them.

According to our archives, we offered the recipe booklets as early as the late 1920s. Themed recipe pamphlets were also offered by mail and could be picked up at in-store sampling events (our pre-Loaf Love Tour days).

Flipping through the booklets takes you back in time to when… well, I’m not really sure since I wasn’t born yet, but I know it wasn’t a time of convenience items and microwaving. Some of the old recipes were family-favorites contributed by “Western homemakers” while others were recipes from “domestic science teachers.” Regardless of where the recipe came from, we knew even then that if you tried Tillamook Cheese you would love it.
Here’s a recipe from the “Streamlined Standbys” recipe pamphlet. It can be dated to the mid to late-1930s. Enjoy!

Individual Ham and Macaroni Loaves

Ingredients:

1 pound ground smoked ham scraps
½ pound ground lean pork
2 cups cooked macaroni
1 egg, beaten
3 cups Tillamook Cheese sauce

Instructions:
Combine ground ham and fresh pork thoroughly, then add macaroni and beaten egg. Pack into greased muffin tins and bake in moderate oven (375°F) for 45 minutes. Serve hot with Tillamook Cheese sauce over each loaf. (Made by adding 1 cup grated Tillamook Cheese to medium white sauce.) Makes 12 small loaves, enough for 6.

By Chandra

What organization could it be, you ask? Only the Tillamook County Creamery Association, of course! Today, February 13, Tillamook is 102 years old.

TCCA was formed in 1909, but prior to that, there were other attempts at forming cooperative-style organizations. They didn’t succeed due to lack of funds or greed on the part of the organizer. But TCCA had a recipe for success.

At the center was Carl Haberlach, a young lawyer who was acting as bookkeeper and salesman for 16 of the local creameries. As the story goes, Carl observed jobbers playing the creameries against each other, influencing the price of cheese. He also noticed that store owners had preferences for cheese made by certain creameries. In these early years, each of the little creameries had their own cheesemaker, and each cheesemaker had their own process for making cheddar cheese. There were no communal standards for cheesemaking in Tillamook County.

Carl had a plan. He wanted to eliminate the jobbers, sell through one organization and improve the cheese by setting quality standards. Several of the creameries thought it was a great idea and, on Feb. 13, 1909, TCCA came into existence. TCCA’s first order of business was to elect a board of directors. With that done, the important task was finding a cheese inspector. But that’s a story for another day.

Photo: Carl Haberlach, TCCA secretary-salesman (retired in 1944)

By Chandra

An early Tillamook Cheese advertisement (ca. 1920)

By Chandra

As Tillamook’s communications and member relations coordinator, Chandra Allen is focused on the needs of the cooperative’s membership, as well as preserving and telling the Tillamook story.

Chandra loves working with the farmer-owners of the Tillamook County Creamery Association (TCCA), and learning from them about dairying. “I have so much respect for what they do,” she says. “I love to get out on the farms and talk to the farmers and hear their stories.”

She produces a monthly newsletter for the farmer-owners, as well as their annual report. Her job also includes managing the Young Cooperators (YCs) program, which prepares younger or future farmers to take on the role of owning and managing their own farms and the cooperative.

“Being a farmer isn’t just about managing your cows,” Chandra says, and the YCs program provides training on a variety of topics, from soil samples to financial statements and everything in between. The YCs also attend national conferences and events to understand the broader dairy industry.

Chandra is also caretaker of Tillamook’s historical archives, which include 3,279 photos and objects as well as numerous paper records. From butter churns to cheese wheel slicers, from photos of our facilities and employees to the letters written to establish Tillamook’s first advertising program, the archives are a treasure trove of Tillamook history. “It’s fun to see how people lived, how they worked, what they wore, and how they spoke,” Chandra says.

Outside work, Chandra enjoys the lifestyle of a small coastal town, and she gives back to her community through leadership on the Tillamook County United Way board. She’s an avid Oregon Ducks fan, and football weekends in Eugene are a family tradition during football season.

“I’m proud to say I work for Tillamook — I love the products and I love the people who make them,” Chandra says. “I can’t say I make the cheese — that would be awesome — but I love having a role in it.”

By Karen