Cow Appreciation: Andrew Dairy

Andrew Dairy was a Goderich dairy company from 1949 to 1977, run out of “The Andrew Dairy Bar” located at 45 West St. Operated by Amos Andrew, Andrew Dairy provided fresh milk to many Goderich locals through their delivery service.

The dairy bar on West Street also had its own separate storefront that operated much like a café. On one of their matchbooks the Museum has in its collection, they advertise “Neilsons Ice cream” and “Light lunches”. We can also see that they accepted bottle returns from customers, as they advertise the phrase “Drink up, we need the empties.”

Their operation was completely local as well, their milk being “supplied by your local neighbors” as seen in their 1959 newspaper advertisement. The Huron County Museum is in possession of many items from this local business. In addition to several glass milk bottles, the Museum was able to preserve one of Andrew Dairy’s milk delivery wagons.

This red and white milk wagon, pictured below, was used for deliveries by Andrew Dairy until 1961. The wagon was possibly built by John Pedersen, a blacksmith from London from about 1939. This wagon was the last of the horse-drawn milk wagons to be used in this part of Huron County. The wagon was pulled by a single horse and had a 20 lb tethering weight used to stop the wagon and horse when delivering milk to customer’s homes.

Although the days of the milk man have long gone past, the Huron County Museum will still be celebrating our local dairy industry on Tuesday, July 9, for Cow Appreciation Day in 2024! The museum will have a local dairy educator from the Dairy Farmers of Ontario, and several dairy and cow related items on display from our collection. And, as always, our iconic two headed calves will be on display at the museum for you to visit!