Newspaper ad for Quality Dairy, 1949 (Courtesy State Journal-Register)
Quality Dairy opened in 1936 and sold milk and other dairy products for over 40 years in Springfield. It also was the innovator that introduced square milk bottles (“the shape of a bottle housewives have been looking for”) to the city dairy business.
Quality Dairy’s founders were John Daughton, Gus Huskey, and brothers Jim and Jack Regan. Jack Regan (1902-90) served as president.
Like many local dairy plants of the era, Quality Dairy sold milk that came directly from Sangamon County farmers, and it processed that milk for public consumption. Quality Dairy was also a retail outlet for the Sangamon Farmers Milk Co-Operative.
The company’s first store was at 623 S. 11th St., but the dairy moved to 1101 E. Monroe St. by the early 1940s. The firm later opened retail stores at 1218 W. Jefferson St., Eighth Street and Black Avenue, and 18th and Stuart Streets.
Like most local dairies, however, Quality also sold its milk via home delivery. The practice was especially popular before the World War II, when many homes lacked reliable refrigeration.
Springfield had roughly 20 privately run dairies in the 1940s. Quality Dairy’s competitors included Sangamon Dairy, Springfield Dairy, Illinois Dairy, Producers Dairy, Creamy Way, Richter’s Dairy, Crystal Dairy and others.
‘The bottle housewives have been looking for’ (William Cellini Jr.)
Quality Dairy introduced square milk bottles in 1945. Ads boasted that the new shape allowed customers to both maintain a grip on the cold glass and save refrigerator space. The dairy’s advertising also touted the nutritional value of its milk and the cleanliness of its plant. The milk not only contained vitamin D, the ads said, but was “homogenized, pasteurized and irradiated.”
In December 1946, as part of a newspaper “baby derby,” the dairy offered six quarts of free milk to the parents of the first 10 babies born in 1947. Contest ad language called Quality Dairy “now one of the city’s outstanding modern plants.”
Quality Dairy reached out to a new generation of consumers – teenagers – in the 1950s, inviting baby boomers to head over to “your home town milk company” for a fountain-made ice cream soda. The dairy’s retail shop at 1101 E. Monroe was open until 10 p.m. with “plenty of parking.” The Eighth and Black and West Jefferson outlets were marketed as “Convenient Dairy Stores,” precursors of the omnipresent convenience stores of the 2000s.
By the early 1970s, however, the prevalence of supermarkets hastened the demise of independent local dairy producers, and Quality Dairy was no exception. Quality Dairy closed its Monroe Street headquarters in 1970.
Quality Dairy outlet at 1728 E. Stuart St., 1967 (Sangamon County Recorder)
Lloyd and Jim Patterson bought the Black Avenue convenience store that summer. By then, Quality Dairy’s satellite stores had expanded their inventories to also include soda, juice, candy and other goods.
The Quality Dairy on 18th Street/Martin Luther King Drive was rezoned in 1971 to allow alcohol sales, and the West Jefferson Quality Dairy eventually became a beauty salon.
Quality Dairy closed its last location (the one on Black Avenue) about 1978, and the age of the independent dairy in Springfield came to an end. Jack Regan passed away in 1990 at the age of 87.
Fate of other local dairies
Quality Dairy’s local competitors also closed as the grocery business changed. Superior Dairy went bankrupt in 1941, and Crystal Dairy closed in 1946. Producers Dairy became Prairie Farms Dairy in 1960-61. Creamy Way Dairy ceased operations around 1961, and Sangamon Dairy closed in 1962.
The owners of Richter Dairy got out of the dairy business in favor of a restaurant, the Richter Dairy Bar and Grill at 1701 Sangamon Ave., in 1959. The restaurant became Shad’s Dairy in the 1960s; it closed about 1971.
Competition from supermarkets and corporate chains did the most damage to the local-dairy system, but milk grading also was a challenge for some producers. In 1949, when the Springfield City Council was considering whether to require all local milk to be “Grade A” status, Roy Richter of Richter Dairy said that “would kill the milk supply.”
“The small farmer can’t meet grade ‘A’ requirements and will stop producing milk, and there are very few big dairy farms in this area,” Richter said, according to the Illinois State Register. “Grade A milk requirements would boost milk prices 2 cents a quart, and the consumer would have to pay for it.”
Some independent producers disagreed. For example, Arlis Castleman of Springfield Dairy said consumers would be willing to pay more for better milk. If he sold bad milk, Castleman said, “people will rush to the big dairy anyway.” The city council voted in 1950 to require milk grading.
Contributor: William Cellini Jr.
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