Ferndale

The bronze credits a pioneer community and never says who ran the dairies. Danish dairymen arriving in the 1870s brought their cooperative habit, and each neighbourhood built its own creamery; by 1890 there were eleven around the town, and Ferndale butter fetched premium prices in San Francisco. Azorean Portuguese families followed between 1900 and 1915 and have kept the Holy Ghost festival since 1924, and Swiss families came too. The ornate houses the plaque admires were called butterfat palaces. A 1967 bronze on the town hall records the Village Club's gift of that building.

What the plaque says

Ferndale This pioneer agricultural community, settled in 1852, helped feed the booming population of mid-century San Francisco. Long known as "Cream City," Ferndale made innovative and lasting contributions to the dairy industry. Local creameries, and the town's role as a transportation and shipping center in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, fostered prosperity which produced Ferndale's outstanding Victorian-Gothic residential and false-front commercial architecture. California Registered Historical Landmark No. 883 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the Ferndale Chamber of Commerce Historical Committee and community effort, September 12, 1976.

Where it stands

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