Hansen Dairy

This may have been Utah's first dairy, and it ran on borrowed cows. In 1871 Lorenzo Snow's Brigham City Co-op built a stone dairy here in Cottonwood Hollow and put Christian and Elizabeth Hansen, Danish immigrants, in charge — Elizabeth a cheesemaker of real skill. The system was pure cooperative: members lent their cows to the dairy each spring and got them back each fall, along with a share of the butter and cheese. At its height, thirty milkmaids hand-milked some six hundred cows twice a day, and the dairy turned out fifty thousand pounds of cheese a year.

What the plaque says

In 1871 the Brigham City Mercantile and Manufacturing Association built a dairy near this location in Cottonwood Hollow. The large 2 1/2 story structure was built from locally quarried stone and represented the Dairy Department of the religious cooperative established by Mormon Apostle Lorenzo Snow. The dairy was run by Christian and Elizabeth Hansen, who had immigrated from Denmark in 1854. Elizabeth was widely acknowledged as an expert cheese maker and had responsibility for all of the products created here. Members of the cooperative were invited to loan cows to the dairy in early spring. Every fall, the cows, along with a share of the cheese and butter their milk had produced, were returned to them. At top production nearly 600 cows were milked by hand twice daily by thirty milkmaids, and 50,000 pounds of cheese were produced annually. The butter and cheese were of very high quality and Elizabeth's cheeses were awarded two gold medals at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. A devastating fire at the Co-op's woolen factory in 1879 followed by an onerous federal tax assessment in 1879, sent the cooperative into receivership. Christian and Elizabeth Hansen purchased the dairy from the cooperative and ran it successfully until 1893. One of their sons. Willard Snow Hansen, continued the dairy operations for a time before transitioning into sheep ranching. Their other son, Lorenzo Hansen founded the Cache Valley Condensed Milk Company, which for decades produced evaporated milk, cream cheese, and butter at six creameries in Utah and Idaho.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wellsville Mountains — 11 mi
  The steepest mountains in North America for their height
• Logan — 12 mi
  A vibrant college town tucked into a stunning mountain valley
• American West Heritage Center — 13 mi
  A living history farm spanning 160 acres of Cache Valley
• Hyrum State Park — 15 mi
  A family-friendly reservoir at the mouth of Blacksmith Fork Canyon

More markers nearby

• Hampton's Bear River Crossing — 2.5 mi
• Salt Lake Cutoff, Bear River Crossing — 3.2 mi
• Boise Ford — 6.9 mi
• Newton Reservoir — 7.1 mi