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- Cheese Factory
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- Dairying had become a
mainstay of the farm economy by the 1920's and a cooperative
called The Hale County Dairy Association was organized. The first
purpose of the organization was to promote the marketing of cream;
later agitation arose to build processing plants to further improve
the dairymen's income. Fritz Struve saw that the heaviest milk
production was in the southern part of Hale County, and that
locating a processing plant in Abernathy would be logical. The
county organization did not agree, and Fritz and Ben Struve decided
to build a cheese factory themselves. The plant was a completely
new venture; in the late twenties there were very few, if any,
cheese factories in the state of Texas.
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- The building of the plant
was completed in 1929, and Bill Malueg, an expert Wisconsin cheesemaker,
was employed to begin operation. He tried to make cheese for
a few weeks before deciding cheese couldn't be made in Texas,
and left for Wisconsin. Luckily, a cheese expert from the USDA
offered to help; the result was that T.J. Struve and Reinhold
Schroeter learned how to make Texas cheese. Schroeter was made
manager, a position he filled until 1932.
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- The selling of the cheese
remained a problem after the making of the cheese was mastered.
The factory had to close down several times until accumulated
stocks of cheese could be sold. Small peddlers picked up the
cheese and took it to the grocery stores in the area. The cheese
slowly became recognized as a good product and came to the attention
of Swift and Company. Ben Struve negotiated a contract with Swift
and Company to purchase the entire production of the factory;
Swift made the provision that Rudolph Struve be made manager.
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- Fritz Struve asked Rudolph
to become store manager in 1935. Arno had just finished school,
and he became cheese factory manager when Rudolph moved to the
store.
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- The factory was initially
able to process 10,000 pounds of milk daily. The capacity was
doubled with the Swift contract, and equipment was added in 1934
that brought the capacity of the plant to 30,000 pounds per day.
Production of milk was seasonal; in the summer all the plant's
equipment was in use, and the plants production was sometimes
cut in half during January and February. The factory produced
an estimated 13,000,000 pounds during the years of operation.
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- Owners and managers of
the factory thought they had the finest of working crews. Among
those who hauled milk to the plant, and those who worked in the
plant were D.O. Skipper, Chub Bradley, Raymond Amerson, Orson
Rea, Hugh, Swan, and Vernon Pettit, Bill Houston, Buck Young,
Olen Reed, Bob Shuey, Slim Benson, Dan Wright, Cecil and Jay
Daniel, and Chester and Hoyt Thornton. Women also worked at the
factory during World War II: Erna Brashear, Oma Toler, and Jessie
Durrett Jones. Walton Smith and Sam Graham move the delivery
truck to El Paso, Amarillo, Abilene,
San Antonio, Fort Worth, and Dallas.
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- Cheese was made every
day of the year except Christmas Day. Milk was held over until
the day after Christmas. Going to church was out of the question
for anyone who worked at the plant.
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- Vemon Pettit took over
the cheese factory operation after his return from military service
in World War II. Arno took over the management of the hardware
store when the International Harvester department was separated
from the hardware department. Rudolph and Dan Ward moved across
the street to the flew International Harvester building.
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- The coming of irrigation
meant that a farmer's time was directed to producing high quality
saleable crops, and that milk production was no longer economical.
Some milk was still being produced in the area in 1951, but not
enough to make cheesemaking a successful operation. Milk was
hauled to a factory, operated by Henty Teubel in Tulia for a
time after the cheese factory was closed in Abernathy.
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