Courtesy Photo | This glass shard was found in a 2015 archaeological dig at Fort McCoy, Wis. The piece...... read more read more
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Archaeologists working with the Colorado State University (CSU) Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML) were digging at a historic dumping site on Fort McCoy when they encountered historic glass fragments and whole bottles, broken ceramic plates and bowls, cow bones, nails and other hardware, a broken pocket watch, harmonica parts, an aspirin tin, and hundreds of other fragmentary artifacts mostly from this single excavation unit.
One of the artifacts recovered from this unit was a piece of a glass milk bottle with embossed letters indicating it originated from the Beaver Creek Dairy in Sparta, Wis.
The Beaver Creek Dairy began in the early 1910s operating out of the William Davis family farm but was sold in 1916 to Ernest R. De Witt, who moved the operation to Sparta. In 1919, De Witt acquired a cream station business to merge into Beaver Creek Dairy, but in 1920, De Witt sold the company to Louis Graf.
De Witt then moved to La Crosse to start another dairy company but returned in 1923 a year after his brother-in-law Henry Stannard purchased the Beaver Creek Dairy from Graf. This time around, De Witt stayed with the company until his passing in 1960.
During its operation the Beaver Creek Dairy expanded significantly from a humble beginning. The first major expansion of the Dairy came in 1926 when the operation transitioned from a frame building that used to be a general store to a brick building.
In 1928 De Witt and Stannard acquired more modern equipment to manufacture ice cream, and additional facility improvements and modernization measures were documented in 1953 while the company was pursuing a Grade A rating from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture.
Not long after achieving this goal, the Beaver Creek Dairy applied for the right to deliver milk in Tomah. The Grade A rating was significant in that it was required by the federal contract through which the Beaver Creek Dairy delivered milk to Camp McCoy and the Tomah Veterans Affairs Hospital. The company also offered chocolate milk, half and half, sour cream, whipped cream, buttermilk, butter, orangeade, and cottage cheese.
The Beaver Creek Dairy continued to operate until at least 1973 when it was purchased by the Thomas Brothers Dairy.
It is unclear if the bottle glass fragment recovered by the CSU archaeologists was originally delivered to a homestead or soldiers training at Fort McCoy, but it is interesting how one small piece of glass can help tell the story of a company that worked hard to provide a valuable service to their community which included Fort McCoy.
All archaeological work conducted at Fort McCoy was sponsored by the Fort McCoy Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch.
Visitors and employees are reminded they should not collect artifacts on Fort McCoy or other government lands and leave the digging to the professionals.
Any individual who excavates, removes, damages, or otherwise alters or defaces any post-contact or pre-contact site, artifact, or object of antiquity on Fort McCoy is in violation of federal law.
The discovery of any archaeological artifact should be reported to the Directorate of Public Works Environmental Division Natural Resources Branch.
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| Date Taken: | 02.05.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 02.05.2025 17:01 |
| Story ID: | 490195 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 56 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Fort McCoy ArtiFACT: Beaver Creek dairy bottle, by Scott Sturkol, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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