Dorri Partain
Contributor

How about a free calendar to start off the new year? This handy freebie will help keep track of delivery days and offers a new recipe for every month, all courtesy of Fairmont Country Club dairy products.

More often known as the “milkman”, the route salesman would bring fresh milk, cream, and other offered dairy products right to the customer’s door, Monday through Saturday.

The Country Club Dairy was founded in 1927 by partners Joseph Quigley, Carl Peterson and John K. Wood. The business quickly grew and their plant at 5633 Troost was expanded multiple times from 1933 to 1960.

While continuing under the Country Club brand, the dairy operated as a subsidiary of Fairmont Foods beginning in 1955, using both company names in an expanded logo.

Fairmont Creamery began in Fairmont, Nebraska in 1884. After moving operations to Omaha, the company began buying dairies, covering the market from South Dakota to Ohio and becoming Fairmont Foods Company in 1947.

Mary Manning, Fairmont Consumer Service representative, offers the nutritious recipes featured in this 1959 calendar, from desserts to main dishes, each recipe requires at least one Fairmont dairy product: sour cream, cottage cheese, half and half, vanilla ice cream, chocolate ice cream, butter, buttermilk, frozen whole strawberries, and milk. While there is a smiling image of Mary Manning pictured on each recipe card, she may or may not have been an actual person.

In the next decade, Fairmont would move all operations to a new and bigger facility at 3805 Van Brunt Blvd., taking over the Sealtest milk production plant in 1971. The Troost plant was still in use in a reduced capacity following the move.

After a merger with Zarda Dairy, Fairmont was known as Fairmont-Zarda until both well-known names disappeared from the dairy cases when sold to Roberts in 1998. In 2013, Roberts became Hiland, which offers dairy products as both Hiland and Prairie Farms.

Most of the old dairy plant on Troost was demolished by 1978. A new building at that address serves as the Frontier School Of Excellence charter school.