SONOMA COUNTY’S FIRST CREAMERY
When it came to milking cows, John Denman’s eyes were on the future. The year was 1892. California’s provincial dairy ranches were bracing for a stampede of new technology from milking machines to cream separators and refrigeration. A new State Dairy Bureau was inspecting milking barns for health and sanitation violations. The California Dairy Association had been established to set quality standards and battle butter imposters like oleomargarine.[1]
In the midst of the disruption, 27-year-old Denman seized the opportunity to open Sonoma County’s first commercial creamery.
John McNear, a family friend, offered him free land in the factory district he was developing near Petaluma’s rail station, where a new silk mill had just broken ground. But Denman wanted to be closer to the dairies. He chose instead to build on his father’s 1,000-acre ranch in Two Rock.[2]
Ezekiel “Zeke” Denman, had purchased the ranch in 1852, after striking it rich in the gold fields. In 1866, along with McNear and others, he co-founded the Sonoma County Bank. Three years later he moved into Petaluma to help manage it. Denman also acquired another 2,200 acres of farmland, most of it during the 1870s, when a recession helped torpedo California’s wheat boom, leaving a number of local farmers to default on their bank mortgages.[3]
Many of those who rode it out switched to dairy ranching. They were soon joined by a wave of immigrants from Ireland, Switzerland, Denmark, the German Isle of Föhr, and the Azores.[4]
The lack of refrigeration at the time made milk unsafe to export. Most dairymen made butter which had a longer shelf life.
Milk was poured into a hopper, strained, and set out in a wide pan to separate. The cream was then skimmed off and churned by hand until it became butter. Salted and packed into wooden boxes or barrels, the butter was transported by horse-drawn wagons to “butter schooners” bound for the San Francisco market.[5]
In the 1890s, the industrial revolution arrived in the form of the centrifugal cream separator. Fed into a bowl spinning at 6,000-7,000 rpms, milk threw off particles of butterfat that floated to the top of the bowl and out through a tube into a mechanized churning machine, leaving the skimmed milk behind.[6]
Denman opened his creamery in November 1892. Each morning, ranchers arrived with wagon loads of 10-gallon cans filled with milk, then waited to refill their cans with skimmed milk to take back to their pigs. Within a year, the creamery was operating at full capacity, processing 800 gallons of milk into 300 pounds of butter per day.[7]
Denman’s Creamery was Two Rock’s second historic dairy milestone. In 1857, Clara Steele launched the California cheese industry from her family’s farm in Two Rock. Using milk drawn from feral longhorn cows, she made a batch of Cheddar cheese from her English grandmother’s recipe, then took it around to the cheesemongers in San Francisco. Used to flogging moldy cheese shipped in from the east coast, they offered her top dollar to sell it.[8]
As demand grew, the Steeles moved their cheesemaking operation to Point Reyes, eventually leasing 10,000 acres stocked with dairy cows imported from the east coast. Their success drew other aspiring dairymen to the area for California’s “new gold rush,” making butter. The coastal prairie of west Marin and southwest Sonoma counties soon became dairy central. By the time Denman opened his creamery in 1892, there were 40,000 cows grazing its grasslands.[9]
While Denman’s creamery was the first in Sonoma County, it was not the first on the coastal prairie. Four months before he began churning butter, a cooperative creamery opened six miles away in Fallon, a small town of 500 residents at the northernmost tip of Marin County.[10]
Lacking Denman’s access to capital, a group of local dairymen invested in the co-op to stay abreast of new dairy standards and changing production methods. They chose Fallon because it had a depot on the North Pacific Coast Railroad from which to transport butter to the docks of San Rafael.[11]
In 1894, Denman was preparing an expansion of his creamery when his father died. Half of Zeke Denman’s estate went to his second wife, Isabel. The other half was split between John and his five siblings from Zeke’s deceased first wife, Nancy. Included in the estate was half ownership in Penngrove’s Ely Ranch.[12]
The 460-acre property was originally purchased in the 1850s by Alexander Ely, a successful gold miner and lawyer.[13] Ely leased most of the ranch to wheat sharecroppers, reserving a portion for breeding thoroughbred colts. The San Francisco & Northern Pacific Railroad ran through the property, with Ely Station a stone’s throw from the ranch house.[14]
After Ely died in 1876, the ranch was purchased by Frank Lougee, a banking association of Zeke Denman and John McNear. In 1887, Lougee sold the ranch to a partnership comprised of Denman and McNear. That same year, McNear’s son George married Denman’s daughter Ida Belle, uniting the two families.[15]
As part of his inheritance, John Denman claimed his father’s half ownership in the Ely Ranch. He convinced his widowed mother-in-law, Minerva Parsons, to purchase the other half from McNear.[16]
Parsons and her late husband Charles had established an 836-acre dairy ranch in Olema in 1865. As a young man, John Denman spent time on the ranch, hunting with the Parsons’ son. In 1888, he married their daughter Ella, uniting two of the most prominent families on the coastal prairie.[17]
After taking possession of the Ely Ranch in 1895, Denman sold his Two Rock creamery and opened a new one close to Ely Station, at the intersection of today’s Ely Road and Old Redwood Highway.
A few months later, he moved his family and mother-in-law into a new Victorian home atop a knoll overlooking the ranch’s plain, which subsequently became known as “Denman’s Flat.”[18]
That same year, Denman was singled out at the California Dairy Association’s annual convention as one of the “new dairymen” casting aside the old ways of their grandfathers.[19]
He wasn’t alone. By 1895, half a dozen rural commercial creameries had sprung up in the area. Denman himself built a second creamery in Bloomfield in 1899, and four years later repurchased his old creamery in Two Rock.[20]
But he soon came to regret not taking John McNear up on his original offer of free land in town.
In 1894, Mary and Galen Burdell, along with their son James, opened a creamery on their ranch south of Petaluma. Three years later, they decided to construct an industrial-sized creamery in McNear’s factory district, directly across from the Petaluma rail station.[21]
Known today as the Burdell Building, the brick complex housed not only the Burdell Creamery, but also an ice and cold storage house for milk, butter, and eggs, and the Petaluma Electric and Power Company, which the Burdells had recently purchased. They incorporated all three businesses under the name Western Refrigerating Company.[22]
By 1914, Western Refrigerating had acquired or shut down most of the rural creameries in the area, including the three owned by Denman. Sonoma County’s largest creamery, it was producing 6,000 pounds of butter a day.[23]
The only serious competition came that year from a group of dairy ranchers, who, tired of being at the mercy of middlemen like the Burdells, formed the Petaluma Cooperative Creamery, adopting “Clover” as their dairy brand.[24]
Denman quickly pivoted to Petaluma’s new egg boom, converting part of his ranch into a poultry ranch and hatchery with William McCarter.[25] In 1921, he was elected president of the Poultry Producers of Central California, the state’s largest cooperative egg marketing association.[26] The next year, the Denman Creamery in Penngrove was destroyed by fire.[27]
In 1929, just before the stock market crash that set off the Great Depression, John and Ella Denman sold their ranch and moved to the Parsons Ranch in Olema, where Ella had grown up. Denman converted to sheep ranching. Ella died on the ranch in 1938 at the age of 71, and John in 1954 at the age of 88.[28]
******
A version of this story appeared in the Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 10, 2025.
Note: In 1984, the former Denman Ranch in Penngrove was erroneously recognized by the Sonoma County Landmark Commission as having been the site of the first butter creamery in Sonoma County, when it was actually Denman’s ranch in Two Rock. The plaque mounted by the commission on the site also erroneously states it was built “circa 1887.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Robert L. Santos, “Dairying In California Through 1910,” Portuguese Tribune, May 15, 2020; “California’s Dairy Industry: The Early Years (1769-1900)”, California Dairy Pressroom, https://www.californiadairypressroom.com/Press_Kit/History_of_Dairy_ndustry
[2] “Petaluma Pickings,” San Francisco Call, December 1, 1891, : “The Silk Mill,” Petaluma Courier, December 8, 1891; “Carlson-Currier Company,” Petaluma Courier, October 19, 1892.
[3] J.P. Munro-Fraser, History of Sonoma County (Alley, Bowen, &C Co., 1880), pp. 337-340; Tom Gregory, History of Sonoma County, California (Los Angeles, CA: Historic Record Company, 1911), pp. 178, 445-449.
[4] Gerald L. Prescott, “Farm Gentry vs. the Grangers: Conflict in Rural America,” California Historical Quarterly, Vol. 56, No. 4 (Winter, 1977/1978), pp. 328-345; Alan L. Olmstead and Paul W. Rhode, “A History of California Agriculture,” University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (Giannini Foundation Publications, December, 2017). http://giannini.ucop.edu/publications.htm; Dewey Livingston, “’Til the Cows Come Home: Marin’s Rich History of Dairying,” Edible Marin & Wine Country, March 1, 2023.
[5] Dewey Livingston, Ranching on the Point Reyes Peninsula (Historic Resource Study Point Reyes National Seashore, July 1994).
[6] Santos.
[7] “Odds and Ends,” Petaluma Courier, October 30, 1892; “Successful Enterprise,” Petaluma Courier, November 1, 1893; Two Rock Creamery,” Petaluma Courier, May 2, 1894; “Early Bloomfield,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 17, 1955.
[8] California’s Dairy Industry; Dewey Livingston, “’Til the Cows Come Home: Marin’s Rich History of Dairying,” Edible Marin & Wine County, March 1, 2013, https://ediblemarinandwinecountry.ediblecommunities.com/food-thought/til-cows-come-home-marin-s-rich-history-dairying
[9] California’s Dairy Industry; Livingston; “Innumerable Dairies,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 19, 1892.
[10] “In the State Dairies,” San Francisco Call, June 27, 1895; West Main Returning to Cheese-making Past,” Point Reyes Light, October 3, 2002; “Marin History: Fallon’s History,” Marin Independent Journal, April 4, 2022.
[11] “Tomales,” Sausalito News, June 3, 1892 ; “Tiny Fallon Forgotten Except for Its Voting,” Point Reyes Light, February 24, 1994.
[12] “Death’s Embrace,” Petaluma Courier, December 17, 1895; “Admitted to Probate,” Petaluma Courier, January 15, 1896.
[13] “Constable’s Sale,” Petaluma Argus, June 13, 1862 (Ely apparently was able to repurchase the lots that comprised the ranch); Ad for Stallion General Dana, Petaluma Argus, June 11, 1875; “Telegraphic: San Francisco,” Marysville Appeal, May 20, 1876; “Alexander Ely,” The Oakland Morning Times, May 20, 1876.
[14] “The Ely Ranch,” Petaluma Argus, December 15, 1876; “Spring Hill Farm,” Petaluma Argus, August 16, 1879 (the Ely Ranch was then owned by F.W. Lougee of Petaluma, Ely having died in 1876).
[15]“Deaths,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 20, 1876;“The Ely Ranch,” Petaluma Argus, December 15, 1876; “Stock Farm,” Petaluma Argus, April 21, 1882;“Big Hay Field,” Petaluma Argus, July 30, 1887; The Death of F.W. Lougee,” Petaluma Argus, June 8, 1906; “A Change,” Petaluma Courier, May 31, 1895; “Personal and Social,” Petaluma Argus, June 4, 1887: McNear’s half of the partnership was actually owned by McNear and his son George, who married Denman’s daughter Ida Belle in 1887.
[16] “A Change,” Petaluma Courier, May 31, 1895; “Real Estate Transactions,” Petaluma Courier, October 10, 1895.
[17] Young Nimrods,” Petaluma Argus, September 23, 1881; “Fine Buck,” Petaluma Argus, September 22, 1882; “Personal and Social,” Petaluma Argus, June 4, 1887; “Personal and Social,” Petaluma Argus, December 8, 1888; “Death Comes to Mrs. J.R. Denman,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 9, 1938; Dewey Livingston, “A Good Life: Dairy Farming in the Olema Valley,” Historic Resource Study, National Park Service, 1995, pp. 185-188, 195-204.
[18] “About People,” Petaluma Courier, August 17, 1895; “Little Ones,” Petaluma Courier, September 19, 1895; “Penn Grove’s Items,” Petaluma Courier, January 8, 1896; “Cotati and Penngrove Get Together on State Highway,” Petaluma Argus, January 19, 1916: first apparent use of “Denman Flat” to describe the Denman Ranch area.
[19] “Dairy Convention Next Week,” Rural Pacific Press, September 7, 1895.
[20] “Local Gossip,” Petaluma Courier, December 14, 1894; “Thrifty Petaluma,” San Francisco Call, April 8, 1895; “About People,” Petaluma Courier, August 17, 1895; “New Creamery,” Pacific Rural News, December 2, 1899; “Purchased Edenco Creamery,” Petaluma Courier, March 14, 1903.
[21] “The New Creamery,” Petaluma Courier, May 4, 1894; “Two New Corporations,” Petaluma Courier, August 17, 1897.
[22] The Sale Made,” Petaluma Courier, December 13, 1895; Courierlets,” Petaluma Courier, December 27, 1897; “Petaluma Pride,” Sonoma County Homes and Industries (Reynolds & Proctor, 1898), p. 34.
[23] “Petaluma Dairying Interests,” Petaluma Courier, March 4, 1914; “Creameries Topic for Rotary,” Petaluma Argus, October 4, 1923; “Butter, Cheese, Buttermilk for the Rotarians,” Petaluma Argus, July 16, 1925.
[24] “Petaluma Dairying Interests,” Petaluma Courier, March 4, 1914.
[25] “Penngrove Hatchery Leased,” Petaluma Courier, December 13, 1921;“Hatchery Moved,” Petaluma Argus, December 14, 1922; “Forger is Arrested,” Petaluma Argus, September 5, 1924; New Hatchery At Penngrove,” Petaluma Argus, June 20, 1927.
[26] “Denman Heads Poultrymen’s Corporation,” Petaluma Courier, April 16, 1921;Want ads for Denman Creamery pullets for sale, Petaluma Argus, September 24, 1923; “President’s Letter,” Petaluma Argus, February 14, 1925.
[27] “Denman Creamery Completely Destroyed by Fire Today,” Petaluma Argus, April 12, 1922.
[28] “John Denman Ranch Sold to N.P. Woldemar,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 28, 1929; “Death Comes to Mrs. J.R. Denman,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 9, 1938; “J.R. Denman, Pioneer Local Rancher, Dies, Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 11, 1954; Dewey Livingston, “A Good Life: Dairy Farming in the Olema Valley,” Historic Resource Study, National Park Service, 1995, pp. 195-204.