First of all, I would like to see Amorette do an article for the MC Star on old Miles City Dairies.

Since I grew up on the Birkholz Dairy, I have started collecting milk bottles and have milk bottles from the Miles City Dairy (John Herzog), the Birkholz Dairy, and the Broadview Dairy (Bailey). The Birkholz Dairy was 5 miles east of Miles City, (1/4 mile north of the Kircher school): the Broadview Dairy was kitty corner to our dairy, along the irrigation ditch, and the Miles City Dairy was further on down the road to the east, a mile or so. Other dairies that had bottles (according to the Montana Milk Bottle book), were the Jack Hoffman Dairy, the Sanitary Dairy, and the Western Creamery.

There were various other dairies: Farnum Dairy, Carbon Hill Dairy (Herman Elbert),Beeler's Dairy,Tomten Dairy, and McFarland Dairy, and I am sure I am leaving out some.

Old Birkholz Dairy milk bottles have sold from 15$ to 100$. I have asked the Montana Historical Society and the Smithsonian if they would like one of our bottles, they said "yes", and I sent the two museums a bottle each several years ago. Prices for milk bottles from the Jack Hoffman Dairy are high. I bid 300$ for a quart and lost out. A half pint went for around 180$. Sanitary Dairy bottles should be rather common according to the Montana Bottle Book.Miles City Dairy bottles, quarts, bring from 100$-180$, from my experience.I just bought a half pint for 25$, which I consider a bargain. The Broadview Dairy probably used a generic milk bottle that had Broadview in red lettering. There were Broadview Dairies in many states (one was in Spokane). These Broadview Dairies all used the same red-lettered Broadview bottle, so one cannot be sure that a purchased Broadview bottle was from the Broadview Dairy near Miles City, but if it was purchased in Miles City, it probably was from the Miles City Broadview Dairy. I purchased an embossed Broadview half pint from the Miles City area, and fell in love with it, I think it is a beautiful bottle.

Anyone with milk bottles is probably curious on the markings on the bottom of the bottle. MTC stands for the Thatcher Manufacturing Company. L52 and LG stand for Liberty Glass and Lamb Glass company (have to review my notes to see which is which). Owens Illinois was also a large milk bottle making company and has an O, with an I in the center. There are sites on the internet with more thorough explanations

Our dairy was in operation from around 1930-1962 when my dad died.

Just to add to your list. Ralph Forman Dairy, Walter France Dairy, Bird Dairy.

I remember your dairy as we got milk from your Dad. He was a real nice guy and delivered to us every week.

FWIW, the McFarland Dairy used to be in this building just south of town:



http://www.flickr.com/pho...otostream/

I have one of the original bottle caps with the logo on it, but I don't know where. They were all over the floor so one day I picked one up and stuck it in my pocket. Don't have anything else though, except perhaps some other older photos that haven't been digitized.

I think I saw some McFarland bottle caps on ebay, once.

It was a pretty cool old building. No one really used it anymore by the time we lived out there, so it was an amazing place to store contraband.

One more to add to your list is the Mann Dairy somewhere in Yellowstone Valley.

A listing of people from Miles City, licensed to sell milk (around 1941), lists C.B. Adamson, R.L. Allen, August Birkholz, Ella Bailey, Beeler's Jersey Dairy, D.E. Edson, G.B. Farnum, Grover Fessler, Geo. Hanson, Jack Hoffman, John Herzog, O.T. Halsey, L.R. Jones, Frank Kuni, J.E. Kelnhofer, Scanlan Dairy, Geo. Sprandel, and Lawrence Wohlgenant. This list was obtained from materials at the Montana Historical Library.

Will keep a lookout for the Mann Dairy.

One interesting thing about milk bottle caps is that only Montana milk caps bear the words "licensed dairy", as if there was a Montana law or regulation requiring those words on bottle caps, or on any advertising. If you check the caps on ebay, you should find "licensed dairy" on most othe Montana caps.

The Smith auction of Dec 3, shows two milk/cream cans, one has a plate, listing the owner as "McKenzie", I cannot read the other plate, it is a Roy somebody

"Any person in Montana who sells milk, cream or butter, even though the product be that from only one cow, must be licensed by the Montana Sanitary Board." (from April 1, 1921 Star)

The Bird Dairy was sold, & became the Schlautmann Dairy, one of the last dairies operating until sometime in the 80's, may of been a dairy also in Rosebud area too. I think there were about 9 dairies total at on time.

Before the Bird family moved out to the Schlautman area they had a small place on Tatro just east of the France Dairy.