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This allowed the McHenry County Pure Milk Association to help find a new outlet for the farmers, which resulted in a contract with Bowman to ship milk into their Chicago facility. Thus on April 1, 1930, Jelke moved out of the structure, leaving it empty. After negotiations between the farmers and Jelke, it was announced that Jelke would remain open an extra 60 days and the farmers would take a reduced rate of $1.55 per hundred pounds. Jelke found it more profitable to open a facility in Hillsboro, where prices per hundred pounds of milk were between $1.75 and $1.95, below the Huntley market of $2. This brought much distraught to local farmers, whom would now be left with no market to sell their milk, as Jelke was the last milk producer left in town. Jelke, whom would become the last major dairy producer in Huntley until the construction of Dean Milk in 1946.īy the time of purchase of the old Cornell building, Jelke had built a strong reputation in the dairy industry with their "Good Luck Margarine," which had the slogan "the finest spread for bread." In the 1920s Jelke constructed two major additions to the structure, with a two story addition to the north and a one and two story addition and new smoke stack to the south. Successful operations of this and the Harmony facility continued up through much of the 1920s. However by the late 1920s, a declining market, as well as higher milk prices in Huntley, resulted in Jelke announcing it would close the Huntley facility on February 1, 1930. In 1912, both the Huntley and Harmony plants were sold to John F. After filing for bankruptcy, all of the facilities owned by the Cornell Bros. The brothers continued a successful business until the 1910s, when money became a major issue. The modern creamery featured a large hill at the front of the building parallel to Church St. and an open loading dock at the rear of the building along the tracks.
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creamery was open for business. Considered one of the best equipped facilities in northern Illinois at the time, the new facility had a capacity of 75,000 pounds of milk that it could handle daily.
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The façade design was similar to the creamery they operated in Maple Park, IL, and on January 6th, 1908, the new Cornell Bros. They demolished the ruins of their old factory and used much of the material as infill at the new site. purchased land from Keating across the tracks from their former site. After the fire and with much support from the community, the Cornell Bros. It is rumored that a short two story section near the middle of the site predates the rest of the structure, and one source states that as early as 1905 the facility was operated as Hezel's milk factory, but all this has been pure speculation, as much of the earliest history of the site remains unknown. Known as the "Catty building" the large brick structure was initially constructed in the 1800s or early 1900s, though its exact date of construction is not known. This set the stage for history at one of Huntley's oldest factories. After their facility burned to the ground, they had to choose between rebuilding or moving. A devastating fire crippled production at the Cornell Bros.