June
is National Dairy Month and while Transylvania County is not known for dairy
products today throughout much of the 20^th century there were local farms
with dairy operations.  That typically
had a small dairy barn for milking and storage.

Frreman Nicholson’s dairy herd in front of the concrete block dairy, brick silo and large timber-frame barn on his Little River farm in 1954.

When
Transylvania’s architectural survey was undertaken in 1990 there were are least
seven farms identified that had a separate dairy barn.  These ranged from small cinderblock
structures with attached sheds to large two-story barn with gambrel roofs like those
built by W.T. Whitmire and C.K. Osborne. 

In the
late 1930s Whitmire built a two-story dairy barn on his farm located along the Old
Hendersonville Highway between Enon and Penrose.  The fieldstone first story is finished with a
dry-mortar appearance, and the loft has German siding in the ends.  The rounded roof has flared, boxed eaves and two
circular metal vents in the roof. 
Whitmire milked 12-15 dairy cows.

C.K.
Osborne’s Eastview Dairy was located just south of Pisgah Forest, at the
intersection of present day Old Hendersonville Highway and Osborne Rd.  Claude Osborne established Eastview Dairy on
the farm he had owned for nearly 30 years and built a large dairy barn in
1928.  The molded concrete block barn had
a bank of fourteen four-paned windows with a central axis which tilted open
horizontally down the long sides.  A
large wood frame loft with a metal roof ran the length of the barn. The
Osbornes milked about 80 head of dairy cows. 

Eastview
bottled their own milk and sold to homes and businesses.  Local restaurants used Eastview milk, cream,
butter, butter milk, and cottage cheese. 
In 1941 Eastview Dairy was sold to the Pet Dairy Products Company.  They took the milk to their Waynesville
facility for pasteurization for retail and wholesale markets through
southwestern North Carolina.  Frank
Osborne managed the Brevard business.

Sunnyside
Dairy, located on Country Club Road outside of Brevard, was owned by W. Davis
Glazener and Sons.  Walter and Paul
Glazener operated the business from the late 1920s until 1940 or 1941.  In 1931 they introduced chocolate milk to the
Brevard market.  Miss Beatrice Green of
Penrose won $5.00 for providing the name “Choc-O-Pep” for their product. 

A 1934
advertisement for Eastview  and Sunnyside
Dairies announced new prices of twelve-and-one-half cents for a quart of milk,
seven cents for a pint and four cents for a half pint.  Buttermilk was six cents a quart. 

Notices
in the newspaper also reminder folks that, “It is a violation of State Law, and
punishable by a fine of $50.00 to use milk bottles that belong to either of the
dairies.”  A $5.00 reward was offered for
providing evidence to convict any person using the bottles for any purpose
other than that intended by the dairies. 
People were strongly advised to return the milk bottles immediately
after use.

Both
dairies had a Grade A rating from the state and federal Board of Health and an
A-1 rating from the U.S. Army.  They
provided milk for the three CCC camps located in Transylvania County. 

Photographs
and information for this column are provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina
Room, Transylvania County Library. Visit the NC Room during regular library
hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see additional
photographs. For more information, comments, or suggestions contact Marcy at [email protected]
or 828-884-1820.