Some places are forever tied with a certain industry, a giver of work and bringer of money to a community. One place might be known for steel, for example, while another might be known for coal mines. While the days in question are now long behind us, Mokena was once a dairy town, through and through. Milk is not only the great nourisher of life, but was also the lifeblood of our community as well. Vast dairy herds once grazed our pastures and brought a livelihood to their owners. In the early part of the 20th century, the bottling plant of the Bowman Dairy Company not only provided employment for a good number of Mokenians, but also put us on the map as being the center of eastern Will County’s dairy district.
The earliest history of Mokena can’t be written without the humble milk cow. On the record of our years, it stands that in 1860, LaPorte Road farmer Diederich Brumund became the first in our neighborhood to ship milk over the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad to city markets. The single can was pulled into Mokena on a small cart by the brute force of Brumund’s powerful Newfoundland dog. This set a precedent that was followed for decades by local agriculturists, who sent untold thousands of gallons of milk over our railroad for urban retail. After many years of this practice, it was with this very road that an enterprising group of village fathers sought to revitalize the town.
In the first years of the twentieth century, Mokena found itself in a slump. The completion of the Wabash Railroad through neighboring communities funneled trade that normally came to us through the newer hamlets of Alpine, Marley and Orland, and a nationwide depression that pummeled the country in 1893 also bode very badly for Mokena. The bad condition of the roads leading into town also didn’t help the dire economic situation in this era. As such, after many erstwhile Mokenians moved away to seek their fortunes elsewhere, a federal census taker counted a meager 281 village residents after having made his rounds in 1900.
Mokena would be a very foreign place to modern eyes in this time, possessing of three modest churches, some unassuming houses, and a handful of mom-and-pop businesses lined up on Front Street. Looking to give the town a shot in the arm, options were discussed and explored amongst the movers and shakers, and it was decided to work with what the village had, namely a robust foundation in the dairy business and solid rail connections. By 1906, prominent citizens began a flirtation with the Bowman Dairy Company of Chicago, which in this time operated at least six plants in the municipalities around the city. On December 22, 1906, a group of villagers made up of mayor Ozias E. McGovney, cattleman Emil Krapp, hardware store owner William Niethammer and prominent farmer Fred Warning made the journey to Bowman’s plant in Barrington. They were impressed with what they saw, and in the words of a local journalist, were “convinced of the desirability of securing such an institution for Mokena.” It was stated that the company would need a minimum of 200 cans of milk through its doors daily in order to run, an order which our dairymen would have no problem filling. Bowman reckoned that a dozen or more jobs would be created in town, a welcome addition to the village in this era. Two days after Christmas another field trip to Barrington was organized, this time the travelers were the mayor’s son Ona McGovney, leading resident W.H. Bechstein and farmers Christian Bechstein, George Cooper and Christian Warning, among others. They also were won over with Bowman’s operation, and thus, through the lobbying of these civic-minded men, the company became very interested in our burg.
The ball got rolling in early January 1907, when Elizabeth Cappel sold ten acres of her family’s property to the company, this being situated on the west side of Marti Lane, (or today’s Wolf Road) just south of the Rock Island tracks. That April, Bowman turned the first shovel of dirt on the tract when they began building a drain which ran south to Hickory Creek. By June, construction had begun in earnest with the pouring of the new bottling plant’s concrete foundations. With the boundaries of the building staked out, they came to measure 150 by 20 feet, no small edifice in the Mokena of this timeframe. As its wooden walls began to rise courtesy of local contractor George Hacker and his crew, the village’s correspondent to the Lockport Phoenix-Advertiser was already singing its praises, proudly writing in his column that “the milk factory is evidence of Mokena’s rejuvenation.” Meanwhile, within a month, a well on the property was sunk to the depth of 175 feet, containing an impressive 125 feet of water. The work of building the plant moved slowly but purposefully, with an 80-horse power marine boiler being installed in September, along with an automatic engine, water purifier and ice crusher. Finally, the plant’s smokestack rose in the beginning of October, and the operation opened for its first day on the morning of Friday, November 1st, 1907, when a company bigwig presented Front Street resident Julia Blaeser, one of the village’s oldest inhabitants, with the first bottle of milk to come off the line. By the time all was said and done, it had cost Bowman Dairy $30,000 to build its new Mokena plant.
The bottling plant of the Bowman Dairy Company at Mokena, seen here in its original form, circa 1907. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)
In those first days, the outlook was jubilant and optimistic. It was reported that Bowman was “very encouraged” by the amount of local milk that was pouring into the plant on a daily basis, and it was expected that by New Year’s Day 1908, this number would be doubled, when the most prominent dairymen of Mokena and Frankfort would have stocked up on even more cows. These agriculturists, who were on a contract with the company, hauled their milk in big cans to the plant, where it was offloaded and ran through machines before being sorted into smaller glass bottles on site. From there, the bottles were loaded in crates into special refrigerated box cars and shipped over the Rock Island to Chicago, where they were put on the market. By 1910, Preston Hird, a Wisconsin native, had been taken on as superintendent, and around 12,500 pounds of milk was being processed daily, or two boxcar loads.
A typical milk can, the faithful workhorse of the dairy farmer.
The bottling plant was an industrious place, but that Bowman could sometimes be a dangerous one to work is proven by the long list of accidents that took place there. Take Fred Werner, the plant’s engineer, whose right eye and face were badly burnt when hot water squirted at them in March 1908. Next up, in the summer of that year, Oscar Christenson had his toe crushed when a cake of ice fell on it. In June 1913, a lightning strike near the building was beamed in through the iron bottle washer inside and the five men working the machine were tossed to the ground by the current. Miraculously, none of them were hurt. Another typical mishap took place on July 22, 1914, when a fast-revolving brush shattered a bottle that was being washed. A storm of glass shards flew in every direction, and John Schenkel’s right hand was nastily cut. These incidents, when taken with all of the others that happened over the years, read like a battlefield casualty report.
Despite the danger, it was noted in May 1911 that the rank and file who manned the plant were earning $50 a month, or close to $1,500 in modern figures. In the spring of 1918, the plant’s 20 workers were “compelled” to join the American Federation of Labor. The joining fee for the union came out to a steep $5, with dues of a $1 a month thereafter.
The Bowman Dairy plant had firmly become a part of Mokena. There was a receiving platform on the side of the building containing an incline upon which farmers had to drive their teams to unload milk. During winter the whole thing would become covered with ice, and to prevent accidents, Bowman’s workers would spread cork particles over the ramp. Years after the fact, local scribe Clinton Kraus recalled how he and his friends, come summer, would collect all the cork, stuff it into gunny sacks, and use the same for buoys when swimming in Hickory Creek. Kraus also fondly remembered how the company sold Mokenians ice from the plant in the dog days of summer, and how Bowman’s engineer would treat him to ice cream that was on hand. Activity at the plant had piqued the curiosity of many in the village, and loiterers and lollygaggers had become such a problem that in October 1908, a sign was hung in the building’s entryway that stated visitors were welcome, but stark red letters “politely inform that loafing is not allowed.”
The local crew of Mokena's Bowman Dairy bottling plant, pictured on the plant's loading dock around 1910. They are, top row left to right, George Aschenbrenner, August Pfleger, Ed Schenkel, William Weber and John Schenkel. Bottom row, left to right, are August Teske, Fred Steinhagen, John Helenhouse, William Werner, Howard Beagley and August Werner.
Business at the bottling plant hummed along to such a degree that the building was quickly bursting at the seams. By August 1911, plans were afoot to expand the structure. A wooden wing would be tacked on to the building’s east side, running parallel to the Rock Island tracks and stopping a few feet short of Marti Lane, along with another small addition to the south. George Hacker and his carpenters, the plant’s original builders, were at work again, and by November a new 100-foot brick chimney was finished, which towered over the village for decades. $40,000 later, the ribbon was cut on the new wings in the first part of 1912, with the first electric lights in the concern coming soon after. More workplaces came as well, with employment now being offered for a crew of 18 men.
The newly expanded Bowman Dairy bottling plant at Mokena, pictured circa 1912. (Image courtesy Richard Quinn)
Just as the new additions were ready to be used for the first time, Bowman proudly announced that the Mokena plant was taking on a grand 20,000 pounds of milk every day. Prosperity reigned supreme, and around 34,000 pounds were being handled daily in the spring of 1915. Another addition came in the fall of 1916, when trusty George Hacker’s firm built a masonry section measuring 20 by 100 feet onto the ever-growing factory’s south side, which was to contain the offices of the manager and roomy storage space.
The history of Bowman’s time in Mokena is one of progress and industry, but also one of occasional disputes with its local suppliers, these being a litany of intensely sharp and acrimonious disagreements. Enter at this point in history the Milk Producers’ Association, a statewide organization not unlike a union. Made up of dairy farmers, it advocated on their behalf to secure the best possible prices for their products. By early 1909, the work of the Association had awoken the interest of many Mokena area farmers, and by and by, they began to join its ranks. After a particularly bad falling out with Bowman in that year, they began discussing alternative uses for their dairy products, and it was collectively decided that separating the cream from their milk and marketing it was a viable alternative. As such, that spring the dairymen banded together under the auspices of the Milk Producers’ Association, leased a vacant lot from Philipena Bechstein on the southwest corner of Front Street and Marti Lane and hired none other than village contractor George Hacker to build a rustic, one story wooden building thereon to house their skimming station.
Seen here posing on the plant's floor around 1915 are the Mokena workers of Bowman Dairy. John Schenkel is at second from right. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)
Although the majority of milk producers decided that skimming cream would be the way of the future, not all were in favor of the plan. Two of them, Henry Yunker and Fred Hinspeter sold their cows and left the business during that season. At the end of April, a haughty Bowman manager from Barrington came to town and told the farmers to be done with the strife, and demanded that they sign the company’s contract and stop building the skimming station. This was rejected. The Joliet Weekly News predicted that Bowman’s Mokena branch might close, even after a company man presented the dairy producers with what were considered good prices, but nevertheless the milk men dug in their heels and held out, stating they wanted the prices that the Producers’ Association was recommending. By the start of May, the worst had come true, and the milk bottling plant closed its doors, not quite two years after they first opened. A resident of neighboring Marley watched from the sidelines and opined to the Weekly News that “…it is a short-sighted policy on the part of the farmers and a hard blow to the business interests of Mokena, to compel the closing of the plant, none will deny.” Those in our environs who were still looking to sell their milk shipped it directly to Chicago themselves, and Front Street’s Rock Island depot was swamped with 147 cans on May 1st, 1909.
That week, the skimming station was officially up and running, having received a whopping 5,310 pound of milk to be processed in its first few days. 8 cans’ worth of cream were skimmed from this initial bulk, which were shipped to the Beatrice Creamery Company, a man from this company was also on hand by May 13th to help with operations. Meanwhile, across the railroad tracks to the south, the Bowman plant was being slowly gutted, with much of its machinery being stripped away and shipped to the company’s plant in Barrington.
What could’ve been a truly dire situation for Mokena was avoided when Bowman manager Preston Hird and another company man finally negotiated a contract with the local dairymen that was to their liking. With this, young cobwebs were dusted away and the plant’s doors were thrown back open after having been closed for about two weeks. On May 13th, 1909, Bowman’s Mokena plant re-opened with a boom, finding more milk cans delivered to it then on its first opening day.
Mokena's Bowman workers man a machine called "the Ferris wheel", which was used for washing milk bottles. Seen here around 1915 is manager Herman Schweser at far right, next to him stands John Schenkel. (Image courtesy of Richard Quinn)
However, the dust hadn’t settled yet, and not everyone was happy. A letter from an anonymous dairyman appeared in the May 20th issue of the Joliet Weekly News, and the author huffed that “The re-opening of the bottling plant by no means signifies a victory for Bowman.” He went on that the product now being sold to the plant would be shoddy, namely that “the milk it receives will be drawn from four to six miles in the summer sun, in very filthy cans, but it is claimed that by its cooking and doctoring process the stuff will keep for weeks.” The new-found sense of calm that had settled in after the re-opening in the spring was misleading, as that November the dairy farmers were once again not signing Bowman’s contracts after it was felt they were slighted by low prices. A very critical situation was felt in the community, and again a closing of the plant was threatened. The farmers sent the company a petition for an increase of 20 cents per 100 pounds of milk, and by the end of December the situation had evened out enough that dairymen felt they were again getting fair treatment and were coming back to Bowman.
Meanwhile, the Front Street skimming station closed in the summer of 1909, briefly re-opened that fall in fits and starts during the second round of trouble with the company, but by the following year the venture was on hiatus, and the whole endeavor was officially extinct by the spring of 1911, when the station was rented to a pair of Orland blacksmiths.
Check back next week for part two of this installment!
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