Platte Valley Has a Dairy Good History

Retired dairy farmer and teacher Larry Vyvey was a special guest at Tuesday’s Talk on April 16 where he gave a lecture on the history of dairy farming in the area.

Vyvey is part of a family tradition of dairy farmers. He learned the dairy trade from his father before earning his bachelor’s in agriculture education at the University of Wyoming (UW). He was also a member of the Dairy Farm judging team at UW. He worked as a 4th-grade teacher and taught for 26 years before retiring from Saratoga Elementary in 1998.

“From 1958 to 1961, I worked at the UW experimental dairy farm, which was part of the College of Agriculture and the Department of Animal Science,” Vyvey said. “The milking parlor consisted of four stations on each side of a pit. A worker on each side of the pit would wash the cow’s udder, place the milking machine on, and then take the machine off when milking was complete and let it through a clear plastic pipeline to the bulk cooler sent at 35 (degrees) Fahrenheit.”

Vyvey would get up every morning to work and service the UW campus. He talks about his job duties during his time as a student.

“Early in the morning I would drive a Chevy bulk truck to the UW Campus where the milk was processed,” Vyvey said. “As the milk was pumped into the plant I would go get the mail in the ag (agriculture) building, that I delivered to the UW Stock Farm. When the milk was processed, most were sent to the dorm cafeterias and the student union. The rest was sold at the campus dairy store to the public.”

Vyvey explained how the Platte Valley made its mark in dairy farming in the early to mid 19th century. He said a married couple became the pioneers who helped expand the dairy industry.

“It started with Amos and Miriam Baggot, the first white settlers on the Encampment River in 1890,” Vyvey said. “Amos trailed a herd of milk cows from Fort Collins by way of Walden, Colorado to their place. Miriam churned butter and packed it into one of her 20 large round crocks. The crocks were stored in the ice house, surrounded by blocks of ice from the river and sawdust.”

Vyvey also spoke about other dairy farmers who sold their products in the Platte Valley and Carbon County. Dairy farmers such as William Wolford sold milk in cans to Encampment residents. Andrew Tikkenanen would sell products such as butter, eggs, and meat to miners’ wives in Hanna when milk sold for 10 cents a quart. Margaret Olson would sell her dairy products to grocery stores in Saratoga during the 1930’s.

“Many Changes have occurred in the last 100 years concerning the milking of dairy cows,” Vyvey said “We have gone from two hands squeezing milk into the bucket to pulsating milking machines attached to a canister to clear pipelines pumping milk into bulk refrigerated coolers. When the time comes the milk is pumped into bulk tanker trucks and taken to processing.”

Vyvey said the key part of being a dairy farmer is you must like cows as a friend. He said cows make a lot of messes and being their friend means cleaning up after them and providing proper sanitation which is part of state inspectors’ demands.

“The bad part of the job is cleaning up parlors and bringing state inspections with the cost of testing,” Vyvey said. “People in charge of the dairy farm have a hard time getting people to do the work.”

According to Vyvey, today’s dairy farms have many large buildings where cows get fed. The milking parlors have some revolving carousels where at least 30 cows can be milked with one trip. He said some dairy farms can milk up to 700 cows thrice daily. Vyvey said some farms are experimenting with robots doing the milking, however, it can be expensive.